City of Dreams
by Siavahda
Summary: "You have a strange and suspicious mind." " I'm not the one who brought a Shadowhunter to Coney Island." It's Jace's birthday tomorrow, and Simon wants to celebrate. Too bad Hell has other plans. 1.5 in the Runed series; sequel to City of Shadows.
1. Chapter 1

I will offer no excuses; this has taken me far, far too long, and I can only offer a million and one apologies. You guys have been beyond incredible, with all your lovely messages and humbling support, and far more patience than I deserved. I love EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU. Thank you so, so so much for sticking with me, and with Runed. I hope CoD can be half of what you guys deserve!

This fic is not actually complete yet, but bluntly, I no longer feel justified in making you wait any longer to read it. It will be between 3-5 chapters, I think, and I will post them as I finish them.

With all the love in the world, here is CoD's first chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it.

* * *

><p>"Rachiel!"-"Simiel!"-<em>"Kabshiel!"<em>-_"Sandalphon!"_

The seraph blades leapt forward in dazzling blazes of ice and fire and their wielders followed them, exploding into motion: one-two-three-four, bodies loose and muscles supple and the room instantly full of the sound of crashing crystal, c_rash-crash-clang-chime, _trailing tails of light like diamond comets. Up-and-down strikes, both arms moving independently, light feet, swaying-leaping-stepping, step _in_ and step _out_ –

Simon grinned at Jace over their swords and Jace grinned back, dancing like the wind around Simon's strikes; _one-two-three-four_, high-and-low, attention split between Rachiel and Kabshiel and Jace's gold-gold eyes –

Kabshiel hooked around Simiel and jerked, jolting Simon's arm, and in a flash Jace's elbow glanced off his throat. "Watch your guard!" Jace ordered, even as his eyes shone with amusement and Rachiel was already swiping in at Simon's stomach and Sandalphon met it, parried, step back and dart and slash out with Simiel, snake Sandalphon in and glance off Kabshiel and again, again, again.

_One –_

_Two –_

_Three –_

_Four!_

Suddenly both Kabshiel and Rachiel were coming for him and Simon had a fraction of an instant to react, _thinking takes too long so don't think just __**react**_and he fell away from the blades, dropping into the backwards roll he'd been practising for the last week. The world spun dizzyingly but he came out of it on his feet, clumsily but in time to parry Jace's next strike and slash Simiel for Jace's throat, kicking out to drive Jace back and give himself some space to manoeuvre.

Jace didn't give it to him; he slid away from Simon's kick and shoved inside Simon's guard like a tidal wave, shoulder to the chest and Simon went flying back. Jace's ankle hooked around his and sent him to the floor, but Simon tucked in and rolled again, rolled with his fall and swung back up onto his feet and "be a jack-in-the-box, Simon!"

"You and your – damn – instructions!" Simon laughed breathlessly, swinging away from Rachiel; a jack-in-the-box, really? He spun Sandalphon in his grip and punched his fist into Jace's sternum, jerked his knee up between Jace's thighs as the blond's breath _whooshed _out but didn't connect; Jace leapt back and smirked at him.

"Now, _that _wasn't very friendly," he purred. Simon's breath caught at the heat in his eyes and Rachiel came at him like a bolt of crystal lightning and suddenly it was a storm, Jace's blows raining down like hail and thunder and it was all Simon could do to hold them off. His arms trembled with the strain as Jace's blows hammered into Simiel and Sandalphon, occasionally biting down against Simon's vambraces with a strength that made the bones in his forearms vibrate and hum. There was no chance to strike back; in mere seconds Jace had reduced him to the defensive, driving him back and back as surely as a glacier sweeping out over the earth. It was all Simon could do to parry the blond's seraph swords, never mind even think about getting back on the offensive.

"You can do better than this," Jace murmured, and it should have been impossible to hear him over the cymbal-sound of their blades crashing together but Simon would have heard Jace's whisper in a crowd of roaring soccer fans. "Come on, _aikane_, show me!"

_The thick, bone-and-meat sensation of driving Simiel through a man's neck..._

Simon's stomach heaved – and just like that, his focus shattered. He missed Jace's next attack and might have lost his own head if Jace hadn't turned Kabshiel at the last moment, so that it was the flat of the blade and not the edge that grazed Simon's throat. Simiel locked to Simon's fingers but Sandalphon clattered to the floor and abruptly the wall was against his back, hard and unyielding and Jace was there, pinning him to it, chest to chest and hip to hip and Kabshiel cool against his neck.

Rachiel's point hovered over Simon's heart.

Jace's breath caressed Simon's lips. Unlike Simon, he wasn't panting. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Simon swallowed. The motion pressed his Adam's apple against Kabshiel. "You do have a knife to my throat," he pointed out. His voice was hoarse.

Jace grinned, and kissed him without pulling the blade away. The _adamas _was cold, and his tongue was warm as it traced Simon's lower lip.

Simon felt the shiver run down his spine like icewater.

When Jace pulled away again, he took the knife with him, and Simon surprised himself by mourning the loss.

"What's wrong?" Jace asked softly.

His gaze seared, too piercing, seeing too much, and Simon let his eyes fall away from it, staring at where Sandalphon lay on the wooden floor. Distantly, he was annoyed with himself for once again dropping the unbonded blade. It shouldn't be only Simiel's magic that kept his weapon in his hand.

"Simon." Jace's hand lightly cupped Simon's jaw, tipping his face up to Jace's. "Talk to me."

_Talk to me._ For a moment the entreaty almost made Simon laugh. Talk? There were a dozen different conversations the two of them needed to have; topics that were too raw and new to touch, or too dangerous, or too uncertain. They needed to talk about the past they should have shared and the future they hoped to have together; about Jocelyn and Luke and what Valentine's next move would be; what to tell Clary and Alec and Izzy about their relationship, and what to hide. Which one did Jace want to tackle first?

But even as he thought it, Simon knew it was a facetious question. He knew exactly what Jace meant.

"I don't feel like I can fight anymore," he said finally. The words felt incredibly inadequate, completely failing to embody everything he meant to convey.

"What?" Confusion swept across Jace's features. "I know you've been struggling the last few days, but you've only just begun training. It doesn't mean you should stop."

"I don't want to stop because I'm struggling, I'm struggling because I want to stop," Simon corrected, more sharply than he'd meant.

He had first-hand experience of Jace's dazzling intelligence, but it didn't surprise him to see only incomprehension on his _aikane_'s face now. The idea of not wanting to fight was probably completely alien to a Shadowhunter. They were born and raised to it. _'We have been for a thousand years.'_

"I've seen you when you're not struggling, Simon. When you first started – remember?" Jace's voice softened, shockingly gentle. This was all so new still – Jace's capacity for tenderness kept taking Simon by surprise, taking his breath away. He still couldn't believe he'd been granted the cipher to Jace's heart, the key that unlocked that cool, sharp exterior to reveal the hidden treasure within. A deeper wealth of passion and gentleness Simon could not imagine, especially since it was so at odds with Jace's outward self. Jace didn't look like someone who could bring tears to your eyes with a single kiss, with the intensity of emotion he could put into it; he didn't seem the type for deep emotions at all, a silver-tongued trickster wielding blades like a whirlwind.

It was only a mask, though. Only a facade, and the beauty of what lay behind it was breathtaking, and blinding, and secret. Simon didn't think he'd ever stop feeling privileged to see it, or being humbled – and amazed – that it was for him.

"When you stopped thinking? You were a natural." A pause. "You were beautiful."

Simon looked away again, trying to find the words – and the grit to speak them aloud. _'You were beautiful.'_ Jace had said it then, and said it again now, and it made something sick and ashamed and guilty wind like a snake through Simon's gut. Because surely nothing could be further from the truth.

"I can't get Renwicks out of my head," he said finally, avoiding Jace's eyes. "What I did that night..." The words – the memories – were like stones. "There was nothing beautiful about it, Jace."

"I disagree." Simon's head jerked up, shocked disbelief whiting him out for a breath. Nothing in Jace's expression suggested that he didn't mean what he'd said. "You were incredible that night. You stood against a fully-trained adult Shadowhunter without balking – outsmarted him, even, switching the cards like that." His voice was even; proud, but something in it hinted at how difficult it must be for him, to talk about Valentine even so obliquely. "What about that would make you want to stop training?"

Simon stared at Jace incredulously. Slowly, unbelievably, it dawned on him: Jace didn't know.

He _didn't know_.

It had been such a huge – a huge – such a huge _moment_, act, event, _incident_, whatever you wanted to call it, for Simon, that it had never occurred to him that anyone could be unaware of it. It had changed his world completely: how could anyone possibly not know that he'd...? And yet, how could Jace know? Who would have told him? Not Luke, horrifically awkward and straining to be polite, unable to meet Jace's eyes and eager to get out of his presence. Not Clary, who'd been hurt and then so busy soothing Simon's nightmares, the only one who could understand. And not Simon, who had no idea how to even begin whittling down the horror and confusion and sin into something that could be spoken aloud – and who had had no idea that it was necessary, who hadn't known that Jace was innocently ignorant of the –

The –

Simon had no idea how to say it.

_I. Killed. Someone. _Three words. Alone, separate, they had meaning and sense, but they refused to fit together in his mouth. Puzzle pieces of broken glass.

"Simon?" Jace frowned, concerned. "What is it?"

Simon swallowed hard. "I... When I was looking for you at Renwicks – before I found you..." He stared at Jace's cheek instead of meeting his gaze. "I lost it, Jace. Completely. I wasn't...me, anymore." He shook his head, frustrated with his own verbal clumsiness. "Remember how I asked you if we were monsters? The second time we sparred? You said we weren't, but I – " _am _" – was, Jace. That night I _was_."

Jace tried to speak, but Simon barrelled over him. It felt like lancing a wound, saying all this: blood and pus rushing free. "Something happened when Hodge gave you to Valentine – to me, in my head or – I don't _know_, I can't explain it. Something just snapped – no, before that, with Abbadon – fucking Time Lords, I don't _know!"_ He was shouting, didn't know how to stop. All the terror he'd been keeping to himself, wrestling with – trying to understand it, make sense of it, what he'd felt, said, _done_ – "The dream – I was _dead_, Jace, you know I was, and I dreamed of an angel and then there was _this,_" he grabbed his forearm to illustrate, knowing Jace didn't need to see the rune there after all the times he'd touched it, kissed it, "on my arm when I woke up and I could speak Enochian like a freaking native – I _knew _things, things about Hodge and – and then, watching Valentine take you away, I just lost it. I don't know how to – I broke the rune cuffs Hodge put on me, I broke out of the cage he put around me – just by _wanting _them to break – you can't tell me that's normal. Even for us."

He felt shaken all over again by the memories crashing over him like an avalanche. "And at Renwicks – on the way there – I wasn't me. I just – I wasn't, I was so _cold_, nothing mattered except getting you back. Do you understand? _Nothing_. The werewolves Luke brought to help get you out – so many of them died, and I didn't even notice. And when we – we – Clary and I, we ran into one of Valentine's guys – one of the ones we saw at Dorothea's, do you remember? I thought – " The shaken, jangly feeling infected his voice, made it tremble. "I thought he'd killed your dad, and I – _fuck._" He didn't want to say it, didn't know _how._ "I tortured him. It was nothing, it was so _easy_ – he couldn't touch me – I – fuck, Jace, I – I cut his head off. Like – I can't e-even – and it f-felt – " _Better than sex, better than anything, the best rush in the _world – "I liked it. I fucking _liked it_. He begged for his life and I just _laughed_."

Jace said nothing. Simon's eyes burned, and he couldn't – didn't dare – meet Jace's.

"Alright?" he managed, his voice thick. "That's why I d-don't want to fucking fight anymore. Because there's something seriously fucking wrong with me, and I don't – I don't want to be that, I don't _ever_ want to be that again."

'_I do not know what he did to you, Simon. But I am sorry for it.'_

It kept him up at nights. What had Valentine done to him? What kind of monster had he made Simon, what had he turned him into? Or what if Simon was wrong – what if Valentine had done nothing, and Simon just _was_ this way, not because of some fucked-up magic but because he just – was?

'_The only thing wrong with him is __you!__'_

Simon couldn't work out which was worse.

His eyes were wet, and he ducked his head angrily as they spilled over. He reached up to wipe them quickly away – but Jace was there first, cupping Simon's face, his thumbs a pair of soft sweeps beneath Simon's eyes, catching every tear.

"You are _not _a monster," Jace said firmly, and there was so much faith in his voice, so much unwavering surety, that Simon heard himself sob, felt it like ice breaking in his chest. "You are the most amazing person I've ever met – you're my _aikane_, and you're brave and smart and completely _insane_," so much warmth, so much l-l-l – so much devotion, Christ, Simon wasn't worthy of so much faith, it _hurt,_ "but in a good way, you idiot. There is nothing wrong with you. _Nothing."_

"Then why am I like this?" A hoarse plea for an answer; he couldn't – he didn't want to cry but his whole body burned for it, for the relief of it, wanted to just break down and purge himself of poison. _As if it could be that easy, that simple to get rid of this _thing _in me, make myself clean – _"Why can I – you saw what I did to Valentine, freezing him like that. I broke the Portal, I have runes showing up on my skin without a stele – I _died_, Jace! I died and came back, and I don't – I don't know if I came back right."

And there it was, forced out in a whisper. Because wasn't it true? He'd gone vicious and elemental in his battle-trance before that, but it hadn't been out of control, hadn't taken him over until after his dream of the angel. Maybe whatever Valentine had done _(if it _was_ Valentine, if he'd done anything at all, if it wasn't just something twisted up and wrong in Simon) _had been like a computer program, installed but inert until the computer _(his body, mind, soul?)_ was rebooted.

More like a virus than a program, Simon thought, sickened.

But Jace wasn't having any of it. "Of course you did," he said fiercely, as if daring the world to disagree with him, as if he could make it true by sheer force of will if he had to. "There is _nothing wrong with you._" He ran his fingertips over Simon's face, over his wet cheeks, and Simon had to close his eyes again, had to suck in his breath for the sharp bolt of pain the tenderness caused. "Simon, you are _brand new_ to all this. What did you expect? That you'd be perfect from the first?" Jace smirked. "Not everyone can be like me."

It choked a short laugh from Simon, and Jace's grin softened.

"You're being too hard on yourself," he continued. "Do you think that none of us become overwhelmed by the battle-trance when we're new to it? Or when we're fighting to protect someone we – care about? We're Shadowhunters. We feel things strongly. Sometimes it gets the better of us."

He leaned in, and nudged Simon's nose with his own, soft and affectionate. Simon's breath caught at it. "As for your powers," Jace murmured, "they only prove how extraordinary you are. Why should I be surprised by that? It shines out of you, Simon; it takes my breath away. Of course you can do things no one else can. You can do anything."

The simple, casual certainty in Jace's voice left Simon so breathless, so stunned, that he started when he suddenly felt Jace's fingers lace with his. His heart was pounding.

"You're gifted, _aikane_," Jace whispered. "Not monstrous." He brought their entwined hands together, and brushed his lips over Simon's knuckles, over the Morgenstern ring.

"And you're mine." Jace's gaze lifted and found Simon's. It felt like a knife to the heart. "So you don't need to be afraid. I swear it by the Angel Raziel and his blood in my veins: I will never let any darkness, in this or any world, take you away from me."

_Not even the darkness inside me? _But seeing the unflinching pledge in Jace's eyes, Simon felt the words die unspoken. He didn't need to ask.

_Not even that. _

"If I promise it's not a distraction," Simon whispered, "can I kiss you now?"

Jace grinned like the sun coming out, and his answer needed no words.

The vampire motorbike didn't fly during the day, but it worked just fine on the ground. Simon closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against Jace's shoulder as the blond wove in and out of the Brooklyn traffic, deft as a chrome-streaked wind. There was still a tightness in Simon's gut whenever he got on the bike; the disastrous finale of the escape from the Dumort rang in his mind like a struck bell. It was hard to forget the agony of his leg being shredded against the tarmac – but having Jace's toned abdomen under his hands made him forget just about everything, so it worked out pretty well.

Sometimes he caught himself wishing that Jace would just keep driving, on and on until they left New York behind them. They could be hunters like the Winchesters, moving from town to town slaying monsters, staying in motels with crappy water pressure but no one to judge them. No one who would look at them and think _brothers_.

He pushed the thought away firmly. It was just a fantasy. Jace was eighteen tomorrow, but Simon wouldn't be for another year. Their mom was in hospital, comatose and showing no signs of recovery. Simon couldn't imagine leaving Clary and knew Jace would never walk away from Alec and Izzy. And that was without all the practical considerations, like how they would earn money. He was pretty sure that hustling pool was not one of Jace's many talents.

They pulled up in front of the club with a soft rumble.

"Where is everyone?" Jace asked, glancing up and down at the mostly empty street. "Shouldn't they be here to hear you sing?" He sounded ever so slightly scandalised.

Warmed, and trying not to laugh, Simon playfully ruffled Jace's hair. _"Aw_, aren't you _sweet?"_ He dismounted, ducking Jace's playful revenge-swipe. "We're not performing today, snugglemuffin, so no, there's no fans lining the streets just now. It's just that Plan B is bigger than anywhere else we've played, so we asked if we could come and try out the space before the big night next week. Miracle of miracles, we got a stamp of approval, and here we are." He grinned. "So there's no need to get all protective."

Jace muttered something that sounded like uncomplimentary Latin, but he was trying not to smile. He sketched a quick sigil on the bike with his stele – Simon saw the curving twist of it and heard a warning, like a bell and a burn – and followed Simon inside.

Going straight from sparring with magical crystal swords to band practise should have felt stranger than it did, Simon thought. Moving back and forth between the Shadow World and the human one ought to be dizzying, but it wasn't; it felt entirely natural to wear his Shadowhunter belt with a pair of mundane jeans, the seraph blades hidden in their inconspicuous sheaths sharing space with a spare guitar pick. Perfectly _normal_, to reach for the mike with an arm emblazoned with an angel's rune; to groan at Eric's terrible jokes while Jace set up watch in an empty corner, his gold eyes gleaming from the shadows.

Simon sent him a smile, and started singing.

The check didn't take long. Just under an hour later the boys were packing up, having satisfied themselves as to the state of the acoustics, when the manager – an African-American woman who'd introduced herself as Meryl – asked them into her office to go over the details. Simon knew that some of the bigger venues had performers sign contracts, but Meryl didn't present one, only wanted to know about lights and transport and times, taking careful notes in a small red book on her desk.

"All right," she said finally, closing her book, "I think that's – " She paused. "Is one of your group still out there?"

It only took a beat for Simon to hear it too: somebody singing out in the main room. Sensibly for a club manager, Meryl had her office pretty soundproofed, which muffled the song – and yet Simon was pretty damn sure he recognised that tune.

He wasn't the only one. "Isn't that Queen?" Matt frowned.

"But there's no one – " Realisation struck like a cannonball. "Oh holy Batman."

_You've got_ _to be kidding me!_

Simon bolted out of the office, sure that he had to be wrong – but the moment he could hear the singer clearly, he knew he wasn't. A certainty only confirmed when the stage came into sight and he saw who was standing there.

"Who the hell is that?" Eric demanded, coming up beside Simon. "And why is he messing with our gear?!"

It was Jace onstage. Jace in jeans and a biker jacket with his hands cradling the mike; but even more unbelievable were the words crooning from his lips, smooth and very nearly perfect. Even without the back-up of any instruments behind him, he sounded amazing, his voice rising and falling with the iconic lyrics –

"_Mama, ooh,  
>Didn't mean to make you cry,<br>If I'm not back again this time tomorrow,  
>Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really mat<em>~_ters..."_

He saw Simon. Simon _knew _he did; the blond bastard winked at him as he slid neatly from one verse into the next, clearly revelling in the attention. By now the rest of Lint had come out to stare, and Meryl was trying to ask who the strange newcomer was, but Simon couldn't take his eyes away. Not just any song, but _Queen_ – as if Jace wasn't already perfect enough –

_"Too late~, my time has come,  
>Sends shivers down my spine –<br>Body's aching all the time.  
>Goodbye~, everybody, I've got to go,<br>Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth~."_

"Who cares?" That was Kirk, staring wide-eyed. "How do we convince him to sing with us?"

But Jace, appropriately, stopped there. Of course he did, Simon thought, dazed; much further and the song required back-up singers... Jace righted the microphone and moved away from it, easy and careless as if he were perfectly at home with the equipment, with being up on a stage. He walked to the edge and braced to jump down, without a word –

"Oh no you don't." Kirk – quiet, laid-back Kirk – stepped forward and jabbed a finger towards Jace. "Don't even think about it. You're not going anywhere."

One golden eyebrow rose, and Jace's lips curved with feline amusement. "I beg your pardon?"

"Not until you've run through the whole song with us."

"_What?" _Eric and Matt cried in unison.

Jace flicked a glance at Simon, just a hint of a question in his eyes.

"Hell yes," Simon said without thinking. Without _needing _to think. Singing with Jace – playing with him – hearing that voice again – he felt himself grinning, wide and exhilarated. "Let's do it."

"Excuse me?"

Belatedly remembering the manger, Simon turned to Meryl with a sheepish smile. "If you don't mind, Meryl?"

The club manager was frowning with unsubtle disapproval. "Is this young man with your band?"

"Yep," Simon lied, before Eric could contradict him. "We didn't think he could make it today, but I guess his schedule cleared up."

Matt was gaping at him, but Jace's smile sweetened into something angelic. "Your pardon for the dramatic entrance, ma'am. I didn't want to disturb your meeting, but I couldn't quite resist trying out this amazing space." He gestured to their surroundings, with its high ceilings and hard walls that so beautifully reflected a singer's voice.

"Oh...well..." Slightly flustered now – and who wouldn't be, with Jace's _butter-wouldn't-melt_ smile directed at them? – Meryl tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I suppose that's understandable." She checked the planner on her phone. "I have suppliers coming in an hour, but you're free to stay around until then, if you need some more practise."

"No –" Eric began, but Simon cut over him.

"No thank you, we won't need the full hour. Maybe just half that." He gave Meryl his own smile. "And then we'll be out of your hair till next week."

"Sounds great." She snapped her phone shut. "You boys have fun."

"What the hell, Simon?" Eric demanded when she was gone. "Are you nuts? Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

"As it happens, yes, I do." Simon grinned. "And so do you. Remember? He came backstage that night at Vatican."

"I don't care if he's the Prince of Wales," Kirk declared. "We're running through the whole of _Rhapsody_ right here, right now, with blondie – "

"I usually go by Jace, not 'blondie'," Jace commented to no one in particular.

" – with Jace singing lead," Kirk finished. "Yes? Yes? All right then. Chop chop, losers."

"When did Kirk and Clary switch bodies?" Matt muttered, and Simon tried not to laugh as he took the steps two at a time up onto the stage.

"How on earth do you know that song?" he demanded of Jace, trying and failing to keep the excitement out of his voice. Trying, and failing, to keep his stomach from flipping over when Jace gave him a slow, heated smirk.

"I may have stolen your music box once or twice," he murmured, keeping his voice low as the rest of Millennium Lint settled with their instruments – Eric still grumbling not-quite under his breath. "Mundane music is very...different to what I'm used to."

"Why does that not surprise me?" What did Nephilim music sound like? Did they play it with instruments Simon would recognise? He was just about to ask when the first part of Jace's confession struck him. "My _music box?"_

"This thing." With all the skill of Locke Lamora, Jace produced Simon's iPod from – where, the ether? The flick of Jace's wrist was too quick, too smooth, for Simon to see whether his lover had pulled the machine from his own pocket or from Simon's. "Your music box."

"You – " Jace grinned wickedly as Simon spluttered. "You _know_ it's not called a music box! You're just doing this to screw with me – "

"It's a box that plays music," Jace said sweetly, "isn't it?"

"_You – !"_

"Can you two lovebirds shut it so we can get this over with?" Eric barked at them.

Simon whipped his head around, stunned – how did Eric know he and Jace were together? – but Jace only calmly reached for the microphone again, smug as a cat with one paw in the cream.

"Of course," he purred. His eyes met Simon's, and the self-satisfied, molten gleam in them dripped gold down Simon's throat. "Are you singing with me, Simon?"

Simon swallowed hard. "No, I'll just – I'll take guitar."

"From the top," Kirk ordered, as Simon moved back and picked up his guitar. "Jace sings lead, the rest of us take the back-up. Everybody ready? On three. One – two – _three!" _

Simon's fingers kept slipping and twanging out the wrong notes, and it was all. Jace's. Fault.

Holy hells, he was more devastating than a category five kaiju. For someone who'd lived a life invisible to normal humans, Jace had no problems working a performance. Even standing behind him, Simon couldn't miss that Jace was _killing_ the song – and Christ on a cracker, it should be _illegal _to look that good in jeans. Every time the blond swayed forward with the mike to howl out a lyric Simon's eyes just _naturally _dropped to that ass – and not even Aziraphale could have remained focused with that view on offer.

And Jace's voice – oh, it shouldn't have been so much of a surprise. They had the same genes, didn't they? Why shouldn't Jace have a great voice? True, it was untrained, and _Rhapsody _wasn't a beginner's song – Jace couldn't hit all of the high notes, couldn't quite make his voice do everything it needed to, but it didn't seem to matter. Jace was a born performer, unabashedly flaunting his body through the music, enough that Simon was sure the Shadowhunter would have a legion of fangirls if he ever did decide to join Lint – and Jace knew it too, damn him. He was clearly enjoying himself; Simon caught flashes of his grin as his _aikane_ prowled across the centre stage, giving it his all even if the high notes were just a little beyond his reach – and his all was all they needed; the charisma, the electric, pulsing power that spooled out from every word to sweep an audience away – sweep _Simon _away, with music to make your blood pound and spill up and out of your mouth in roaring light –

"_No, no, no, no, no, no, no!"_ The boys roared, and Simon felt it in his chest, a raging fire –

"Oh, mama mia, mama mia – !" Jace growled.

"_Mama mia, let me go!_

"_Be-elzebub has a devil-put-aside for meee, _

"_For meee, _

"_For meeeeeee!"_

Guitar – and Simon's fingers flew, the clumsiness gone, dancing over the strings as Jace danced around the mike, laughter weaving in and out of the notes because fuck, this was fun, blinding and bright –

"_So you thought you can stone me and spit in my eyeeee?"_ Jace howled. "_So you think you can love me and leave me to dieee?_

"_Oh, baby, can't do this to me baby!_

_I just gotta get out, just gotta get right-out-of he-re!"_

And Simon could imagine it so easily – the club packed, the lights beaming down, the audience shrieking approval – this, now, this was just improv, this was wild and manic and each of them, Matt-Kirk-Eric-Simon-Jace, all of them just trying to keep up with each other, with a song they hadn't prepped for and a singer they weren't used to and it was _insane_, a handful of minutes and the sweat was pouring down, Simon and Matt skidding in with the bass and electric and Kirk hitting his keys like he was waging a war, Eric's cymbals the thunder and all of them weaving a web of lightning, crackling-burning-_searing_ –

But it had to slow eventually. They dropped out, one by one, until it was Jace left alone with Matt, Simon welcoming the chance to breathe as his _aikane_ softened his voice, just a little. Was he grateful too, now that the hardest part of the song was over?

"_Nothing really matters,"_ Jace crooned,

_"Anyone can see,  
>Nothing really matters...<br>Nothing really matters,_

_To meeeee..."_

And. Silence.

If anyone wanted to drop a pin, now was the time to do it.

After a moment, Jace turned around to face Simon and the band. "Well?" His voice was a little hoarsened.

"You're kidding, right?" Matt looked as if he'd been smacked with a wet fish – but enjoyed it. "That – that was – "

"You're hired," Eric said instantly. "So hired. You were hired _yesterday."_

"Seconded!" Kirk crowed.

But Jace only had eyes for Simon. Aurelian and intent, intense, darkened to bronze by the exertion and something that was just for Simon alone.

Simon swallowed to wet his dry mouth. "You were amazing," he said softly.

Jace's smile was a dagger as he slid the microphone back into its stand, as smoothly as resheathing a knife. Smug. That was the word, and Simon wanted to bite the curve of his mouth and taste that honey-and-spice arrogance, feel it bleed all over his tongue and swallow it down, down and down. Wanted those hands that handled a mike like a weapon on his own body, strong and hard and holding him.

Preferably against a wall, or down on their bed.

"I'm afraid I'm not looking for a job just now," Jace said idly, his gaze still fixed on Simon. "But I'll bear it in mind, if I'm ever looking for work. This was...interesting." To Simon: "Shall we go?"

"Yeah. Yes. Just a sec." His brain buzzing with want and barely-suppressed laughter, Simon swung the strap of his bass over his head and set it carefully down. "You can take this back, right, Eric?"

"You – what – "

Simon beamed at him. "Thanks! I'll catch you guys later, all right? Text me."

"But – but –!"

Jace leapt down from the stage, arms outstretched like wings. Without thought Simon followed him, running up to the edge and leaping into freefall, quick and easy as a gazelle, a panther, the arc of falling water.

It was nothing. A five foot drop. But for a second – a fraction of an instant – he was weightless, and flying, and laughing.

And then he landed, a hair behind Jace, and the two of them were gone even as Eric, somewhere behind them, demanded, "The fuck just happened?!"

They didn't need words. The moment they were outside beneath the sunlight the Nephilim and the singer _(which is which who is who who knows who cares) _stumbled into a side-alley with the same wordless telepathy of a wolf pack on the hunt, seeking shadow, skin, sex; Simon hooked his ankle around Jace's and Jace let him, cupped Simon's skull before it could hit the brick wall and fell against him mouth to mouth, fell like a star, like Lucifer, like something dragged down bloody. Weight to weight and chest to chest; Simon tore open Jace's jacket and hunted for his hips, tasted Jace's low sound of hunger and drank it down, swallowed the cardamom-chocolate and Jace's hand slid down, abandoned Simon's head and found his waist, his hipbones that slotted against Jace's palms so perfectly, interlocking, made to fit. The _click_ of it seared through Simon's blood and sang counterpoint to the song still rushing through his veins, pulsing and pounding fit to shake the earth beneath them and make the trashcans rattle, but he knew they could fit even better together, even more closely. He felt the ache, felt Jace's, slipped his hands under Jace's shirt and traced desire like a rune over his skin, feeling him tremble, tasting his groan. It wasn't enough, he wanted more, both of them breathing hard as if running, singing, snatching air between the lines of a verse, between kisses, lips on lips and on jaw, throat, the curve of a shoulder. Jace's touch was a hymn and a battle-cry, as if they had seconds left to live and this was his final act of worship; every brush of teeth a prayer, every caress of his hands dedicating Simon's body to something holy, claiming and celebrating and divine bliss and Simon _couldn't stand it_. Jace pushed and pinned him to the wall and Simon's hips bucked, gasping, frantic for friction, catching fire under his _aikane_'s hands, oh God yes _please –_

He bit Jace's lip when the kisses came back to his mouth, clawing at Jace's spine, _closer closer_, come on, drunk on it, shaking, the memory of Jace singing lashing through him white and bright; Jace's wicked fingers around the microphone, lips parted, sweat beading his forehead, spine a bow as he curved into the song –

"_Jace,"_ he hissed, a whip slicing air; Jace bit him, a sharp crush of teeth and slapped his palm over Simon's mouth to muffle Simon's yell, startled-shocked-holy-fuck, do-that-again, again-again, hands everywhere, nails raking over Jace's scars and Jace's fingers warm and dry against his lips and there was something, something liquid and hot in the pit of his stomach in being gagged, pinned in place with Jace's mouth on him, the hard heat of Jace's cock grinding against his.

Jace let his hand fall, skimming down Simon's mouth and chin and neck: he nuzzled Simon's ear, panting the way he never did when they sparred. "We should – "

"Not stop," Simon gasped. He spread his legs against the brick and tugged, wrenching Jace that fraction closer. They both groaned. "Don't – "

"Then what?" Hoarse, hands greedily devouring every inch of Simon they could reach –

"Here?" Simon suggested breathlessly. He rocked his hips deliberately, rubbing his face against Jace's shoulder, breathing in sweat and leather and sex, drinking in the _sounds_ – "Couldn't we – ?"

"_Here?"_ Incredulous – but when Simon raised his head Jace's eyes were bronzed, wild and hungry, and something deep and vital in Simon shivered, loving it, revelling in the almost predatory gleam in the gold.

"Here," he purred. Fisting his hands in Jace's shirt, he ran his tongue over the blond's lip – and pushed his thigh between Jace's legs, a long, slow, deliberate stroke of pressure. "Why not?" he murmured over Jace's moan. "Don't you want to _fuck me_, Jace?"

Jace swallowed the end of his name – devoured it, _taking_ Simon's lips as if he meant to eat Simon alive and Simon's fingers were in Jace's hair, fisted, tearing, trembling, exulting, sucking on the tongue fucking his mouth. Hands dropped, finding buttons, zippers, burning-burning and Simon wanted to laugh and wanted to crow but he groaned instead, unable to believe he was doing this and utterly unable to stop. He'd never done anything like this but he didn't care, not with Jace's skin under his hands and the promise in his eyes like molten metal, forging, piercing –

"Do you – ?" Jace asked, and "Yes, _yes,"_ Simon answered, yes to everything – _do you want_ and _do you have_, the two most important questions, the only ones that mattered, and Jace kissed him hard before pulling back a breathless step or two.

He had his stele out before Simon could ask what he was doing, and for an instant Simon thought of all the Harry Potter fanfictions where they had spells for lube, wondered if there was a rune – but no, Jace sketched a quick knot of blackness on the brick wall beside them and Simon's lips felt bruised, he caught the sound of whispers and velvet susurrations before Jace was back on him, yes, right where he belonged, "Just a glamour," panted, kissing, tearing Jace's jacket off his shoulders and onto the ground just because – "so no one will see – "

"Yes," Simon breathed, and there, no more words, no more talking – more kissing instead, deep and wet and it was so hard to breathe, impatiently fighting with the button on his jeans until it _finally _came free, and then the Shadowhunter belt, pulled loose and he was turning around, holy hells, leaning his forehead against the wall and trying to stay standing as Jace pushed his trousers down. Fuck, the touch of summer air on his bare skin, they were _outside_ and he had no idea how well the glamour worked, if it would cover the _sound_ but gods he didn't care, spreading his legs with his jeans around his knees and fighting not to whimper at the first brush of Jace's fingers.

"Boy scout," he whispered, grinning, because the fingers were slick and Simon wasn't the only one carrying lube in his pockets these days, but then they slid in and he gasped and Jace looped an arm around his waist, purring like a lion as Simon's legs went weak. "Shadowhunter," he corrected smugly, and Simon couldn't even argue the point, not with the tangled whines spilling out of his throat, the heated-honey craving spilling beneath his skin. Fuck, _fuck_, they were _outside_, and it was hard to believe that anyone passing by wouldn't see, see him with his face against the wall and Jace's fingers opening him up, pushing in and crooking because it hadn't taken him long at all to discover what the prostate was for and Simon gasped, rocking his hips back to get Jace right where he wanted him, right where he _needed_ him –

"Now?" Jace breathed, and _"Now," _Simon demanded, pleaded, scrambling a condom from his pocket and shoving it back to his _aikane_. He folded his arms between his forehead and the wall, panting, wanting, listening to the rustle of foil that seemed to roar in his ears. And then Jace's hand was on his hip, tugging gently, his sticky-slick fingertips brushing the jut of Simon's hipbone while his other hand held him open, proprietary and urgent and Simon was burning-burning-burning, the longing a physical, empty ache that turned sharp and desperate at the touch of oily latex –

And then the slow, thick glide of flesh and fullness, the angle unfamiliar and almost-awkward but still so good, too good, obscene; with his legs hobbled by his jeans everything was tighter, the burn brighter and sharper as Jace slid home in him. Simon wanted to rake his nails through skin and anoint them with someone's blood, Jace's blood, but there was no way to reach, no way to do anything but squirm and moan, feeling Jace come to rest against the back of Simon's thighs, feeling him tremble with the intensity. "Simon," he whispered, nuzzling the back of Simon's neck, "By the Angel, _Simon."_

Simon's lips shaped Jace's name soundlessly, over and over as he tilted his spine and pushed back into it, into the pressure, into the heat of Jace's skin like a fire against his. He felt branded by it, burnt and claimed and his own skin felt too tight, about to burst, about to split at the seams with wave after wave of light waiting to spill out and blind –

He shut his eyes tightly, blocking out the brick in front of his face and groaning, drawn out and low as Jace moved. Yes, yes, _fuck_, he wanted something to touch, something to hold, his cock ached like a wound between his legs but he left his hands where they were, somehow, somewhy, craving it, craving _this_ and his lips parted, breathless and starving and his teeth throbbed in his mouth, he couldn't stop trembling. Jace thrust, again and again, not clumsy in the least and the stretch made Simon want to howl and claw something, made him pant; his body moved with Jace of its own accord, sleek and smooth like an animal, a battle, trance – glorying in it, in the hot puff of Jace panting against the back of his neck and the caress of callused hands moving up under his shirt, the slap of flesh and it drove everything else away, everything that wasn't skin and sweat and sex. _Jace,_ and the unvoiced howl became a breathless laugh flooding through his veins, sharp and glittering and fierce until his every artery pulsated with it and it was so _easy_, so _right, _he was turning into glass and that glass was filled with red and blue fire –

And if the glass broke –

Simon purred, lowered an arm to hook it back around Jace's neck. "Harder," he ordered, and the voice was only barely his, husky and decadent, but he tugged and Jace obeyed and Simon sighed with pleasure, tilted his head back and ran his fingers through Jace's hair; _mine, you're_ _mine_. Jace kissed his neck and each kiss felt like a _yes_, a promise; Simon tilted his head and let the blond litter his throat with moan-edged oaths, something like triumph and something like hunger beating in his chest like a heart. Restless, electric, _harder_, snapping his hips to fuck himself on Jace demandingly and Jace's rhythm stuttered, he gasped against Simon's neck like a man drowning and it was so good but not enough, Simon wanted to break, wanted _out_, wanted his glass skin pounded to dust and "break me, Jace, break me, _break me_ – "

"Simon – ?" Confused, breathless, hesitating, and no, fuck, not _now_; Simon swallowed a scream of frustration and hissed through his teeth, grabbed Jace's hair and pushed his mouth against the curve of Simon's shoulder, just where it met his neck, "bite me," he snarled, "fucking _hurt me,"_ driving his hole over Jace's cock, come on, harder-harder so _close_ the glass was cracking and Jace –

His teeth sank into the base of Simon's neck like a bear-trap of blunt pearl and his hand clamped over Simon's mouth, choking Simon's quiet scream and oh God, oh-holy-fucking-Christ, Simon's stomach knotted with bone-melting bliss and he _wailed_ against Jace's fingers, felt his nails catch against brick as he scrabbled at the wall like an animal, fucking and gasping and spurting all over the wall in long, helpless jerks. Untouched, and Jace fucked him through it, rougher and sweeter and the _burn_ of it, the sweet stinging _burn_ –

Jace groaned, quietly, and Simon felt him come – felt the blond shudder against him, and that indescribable sensation of a condom being filled. It made him squirm, not entirely happily. The pit of his stomach was still molten, all golden liquid, and he found himself almost upset by the necessity of the latex, frustrated and shaky with the longing to be wet with Jace, to have him dripping down his thighs here in an alleyway like the worst kind of slut –

He shivered. Jace was nuzzling the bite he'd left, kissing it gently. The dull lightning of the touch made Simon's toes curl.

"Are you all right?" Jace murmured.

He pulled his hand away; Simon kissed his fingertips before answering. "Yeah." His voice was rough; the sound of it took him by surprise. "Very. _Yes."_

But he wasn't at all sure that was true. Beneath the honey-thick afterglow, Simon felt sick. He raised a hand to rub at the bite-mark, and felt it throb beneath his fingertips.

What had just happened?

"I can't believe you brought me here," Jace said, eying their surroundings with completely unreasonable distrust. "At least tell me there's a host of demons masquerading as the frankly dubious-looking horses on the carousel, and we're here to dispatch them before they eat any children?"

Simon side-eyed him. "You have a strange and suspicious mind."

"_I'm_ not the one who brought a Shadowhunter to Coney Island."

This was true. Simon grinned. "Just don't make me regret it," he said cheerfully, "and I _might_ let you at the rogue Downworlder manning the cotton candy stand."

"What? Where?" Jace's head whipped around so fast, and there was a shining crystal dagger in his hand so suddenly, that Simon was torn between laughing and hyperventilating.

"Damn your duck pond, I was kidding!" Hastily, he reached across Jace's body to force his hand down. "Put that away. We're supposed to be having fun, not killing things."

"Killing things _is_ fun." But the knife disappeared as swiftly as it had appeared, and Simon could almost relax. "So if we're not here to hunt, what _are_ we doing?"

"Psychopath," Simon said fondly, slipping his arm through Jace's. No one seemed to have noticed the very illegal knife made out of a substance not known to man, for which he was grateful. "We're celebrating your birthday."

"Which is not until tomorrow," Jace pointed out, no longer at ease. As quickly and easily as he'd drawn his knife, the blond had tensed, his eyes glancing from side to side as if anticipating some kind of attack. Tension shimmered like heat in the air around him, and he felt rigid and unreal at Simon's side, his arm like a block of wood in Simon's.

"Other things are happening tomorrow," Simon said lightly, even as his throat drew tight. "So I'm taking my chances with today." What was wrong? Jace wasn't _actually _concerned that they were going to be attacked, was he? "Are you all right?" he blurted. Maybe this was a mistake – maybe they should just head home, do something else for the day...

Jace wouldn't look at him.

"Jace? Please talk to me."

Stiffly, Jace pulled away from him – drawing his arm free from Simon's in the process. "We're in _public_," he said lowly, gaze fixed stubbornly on the ground.

It hit Simon then, with Jace avoiding his eyes and realisation a cluster of razors in his throat; a sick shock, and deep, shameful hurt. Rejection bitter and unreasonable and inarguable in the pit of his stomach.

And faster than thought, a dark flash of fanged fury, searing everything hot and burnt and blazing: _you'll fuck me in an alley but you won't hold my hand? _

It took effort not to spit the words out like bullets. For an instant he wanted to be cruel, to make Jace hurt like Simon hurt. But he caught himself, even if the bullet-words lodged in his throat, small and hard and cold.

He closed the distance between them and brushed the back of Jace's hand with his own. "No one will care here," he said softly.

Jace hesitated.

Simon said nothing else. He let his hand fall and started walking towards the Luna Park ticket booth, carefully not looking back. This wasn't about him. It wasn't even about _them._ Jace came from a very weird, fucked-up world, and whatever pain he caused Simon was unintentional, left over from the brainwashing he'd gone through since birth. So Simon wasn't going to push it. He was going to be mature and sensible and ignore the pang of wormwood-bitter hurt, because this was no big deal, really.

He held Jace's words from this morning around his heart like a shield as he joined the queue.

Most of the Coney Island amusement parks ran on cash, but Luna Park was different. Here, your money paid for credits, which were loaded onto a little plastic card. Swipe the card on a ride, and credits were deducted. When Simon had last been here with his mom, he'd been ten years old and had delighted in having his own 'credit card' just like a grown-up; he'd cherished the Technicolor thing for weeks afterwards. The memories made him smile to himself as he handed over his money, but as much as he wanted to see Jace with one of the cards he bought them a pair of wristbands instead. Just as brightly coloured, they granted unlimited access to any ride for four hours. For $30 each, that seemed like a steal.

Jace was still standing where Simon had left him.

"This is yours," Simon told him, fastening his own around his wrist.

Jace took it dubiously, and Simon looked away as the blond tied the bracelet in place. Taking a chance on today seemed to have paid off. The sky was bright and clear, sunlight spread across it like honey on bread – anathema to any demon – but between August drawing to a close and the breeze coming in off the pier, it was cool enough to be bearable. There was a carnival smell mixed in with the sea-salt and brine, hot dogs and candyfloss and frying onions, and a holiday air to the people who'd come to make the best of the last days of summer, before school started and the New York autumn wrapped the state in grey. In his leather jacket, Jace looked like just another teenager dragged along unwilling on a family day out.

"Very well," Jace said slowly, eying his neon-bright wristband. "So what exactly does one do at Coney Island?"

" 'One' drops the formal British, for a start," Simon said dryly, "if 'one' wants to pass for an American teenager." He grinned. "And then we try out the rollercoaster."

"Okay." Jace frowned. "What's a rollercoaster?"

This was going to be _so much fun._

The rollercoaster was a huge success. Far from being freaked out and getting sick, as Simon had half-expected, Jace flung his arms up and _whooped_ as the cart spun upside-down on the tracks, looping like a dragon's tail forty feet up in the air, and Simon yelled out with the same exhilarated joy, high on adrenalin and the fierce delight Jace turned on him, with the wind kissing their hair and the screams and laughter of their fellow passengers a chorus as they raced through the sky –

"Again," Jace demanded, lit up like a firework and Simon grinned and they rode it again, and again, the blond restless and impatient with the queue each time but crowing so fiercely up in the air, arms spread as if he could lay claim to wings, as if he meant to take off from the coaster tracks himself.

"Don't you want to try anything else?" Simon asked, trying not to laugh as Jace made to go line up again after their fourth time on the ride.

Jace's eyes lit up. "Are they all like that?"

Simon grinned. "Not quite."

The Ferris wheel made Jace marvel, amazed to be up so high, although he expressed his disappointment – loudly – that it didn't go upside-down. Which of course meant that Simon _had_ to show him the Zonobio next, a ride which flipped you over and over in a permanent somersault while whipping you through the air at 60mph. Even Simon felt a little queasy after that one, but Jace _loved _it, laughing like a kid at the insane rush, the weightless speed, and his fearlessness made Simon ache to lean over and kiss him, flooded to the brim with hopeless adoration. He wanted to wrap Jace in this moment and never let him go, capture him in the sunlight and laughter like a treasure in amber, where the darkness could never reach him again. After Renwicks, to see Jace like this – so bright, so alive, so unabashedly _happy_…

Kal-El, but Simon would do anything to keep this.

The bumper-cars were confusing, and Simon doubled over laughing at Jace's kittenish frown as he puzzled out the pedals and steering wheel, but the Shadowhunter got the hang of them quickly enough. He and Simon chased each other around the space in snaking circles, Jace ignoring the other drivers while Simon gleefully rammed into everyone he could reach, cackling like mad before whizzing away again. And he hadn't even had sugar yet.

Which reminded him, and he and Jace went to find something to eat. ("What do you mean you've never had a hot dog?!") There were frankfurters drizzled in onions and ketchup, and neon slush puppies that turned their tongues purple, and then Simon insisted on clouds of candy-floss, giant pink cotton balls on sticks striped like candy-canes. Jace's expression when the woman handed him his was _priceless_.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he demanded as Simon laughed and laughed and _laughed_.

"You _eat_ it!" Simon gasped, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "No, wait, I'm going to get my phone out, do that face again."

Jace didn't pull quite the same expression, but his _dear Lord you actually __are__ a lunatic aren't you?_ face was almost as good, especially with the pink candy-floss in the same shot. Simon's grin stretched so wide it almost hurt as he stared down at the picture. "I will treasure this forever," he declared.

Jace rolled his eyes and took a bite of candy-floss. But Simon knew it was only to hide his smile.

Simon, of course, managed to get the sticky pink stuff in his hair, while Jace managed to keep a single speck of crystallised sugar from sticking to his cheeks. It didn't matter; as Jace helped him get the wisps of floss out of his hair, Simon could still smell the sugar on his breath, still knew, sharply, that Jace's lips would taste of it if he only leaned forward and kissed him.

Jace's eyes glanced into his as if he'd heard the thought, and froze, his fingers still in Simon's dark hair.

Simon swallowed. "It's okay," he whispered. Meaning; _it's okay if you do_. And, also; _it's okay if you don't_.

Something uncertain and fragile flickered across Jace's face, and he glanced away at the crowd around them, almost nervously, and Simon wanted to cry. Not because he felt rejected – he didn't, not really, gods, he understood – but because someone, so many someones, had crippled Jace like this, made him afraid when he shouldn't have to be; Jace, who should never be afraid of anything. Not that the Nephilim held the patent on being homophobic assholes, not by a long shot, but Simon would never be afraid like Jace was now.

They came from such completely different worlds, and not for the first time Simon wanted to burn the Shadow World to the ground; wanted it with a vicious, terrifying intensity. Wanted to eradicate every _trace_ of the culture that had brutalised Jace's ability to love openly.

"It's okay," he whispered again, meaning it – meaning it more than anything. He wanted so badly to take Jace's hand, but he'd have cut his own off at the wrist before making Jace any more uncomfortable. He made himself exhale, and started to climb off the bench. They were sitting at one of those white plastic tables with a bright, cheery parasol sprouting up from the centre of it – Simon thought he'd glimpsed the brand of some ice-cream on the umbrella. "How about we just – "

And his thoughts stuttered, stopped, brushed away by the brush of Jace's lips on his; quick and light and sugar-sweet.

It was only an instant. It felt like an hour, felt as though time drew in a breath and held it, stretching the second of kiss into a long, languid caress of mouth-on-mouth. Huge, and heavy, and momentous.

Time breathed out.

Jace pulled back slowly, watching for Simon's reaction. A flush of colour stained his cheekbones, and he held himself deliberately still, as if he had to consciously work at not looking around to see if anyone had seen them.

But he didn't look. And Simon felt himself grin, so wide and love-drunk that his cheeks ached.

Relief melted the tension out of Jace's shoulders, and he smiled back at Simon. "I don't care," he said firmly.

_I love you._

Simon's heart skipped a beat. "I don't care either," he said softly.

_I love you too._

"Now come on." He stood up and started gathering up their rubbish. "The day's not over yet!"

He didn't think it could be that simple, of course. Or that quick. He doubted even Jace could get over this kind of fear so quickly. It would take time, and patience, and Simon was ready to give Jace as much of both as he needed.

But that didn't mean, when Jace casually took a step closer and laced their fingers together, that Simon was going to do anything but squeeze encouragingly and hold on tight.

"You _cannot_ go to a theme park and not ride the teacups," Simon said firmly, steering Jace towards the ride. "It's a _law._"

And it turned out that that was _exactly _the right thing to say – of course it was, Shadowhunters and their Law, why didn't he think of that earlier – to make Jace's protests mute down to under-his-breath muttering as Simon picked out a blue-and-white teacup for them to sit in.

"My dignity may never recover," Jace said archly, and Simon snapped another picture because it was impossible to resist.

"It's not supposed to be dignified," Simon grinned, and then they were off; turning slowly at first, and then faster, and Simon showed Jace how to hold on to the disc and they were spinning like Catherine wheels, dizzying and electric and the whole world whirling around them, reduced to blurs and streaks of colour. Simon laughed and Jace was grinning like he couldn't believe it and they both hauled on the disc to spin their cup even faster; without discussion it segued into a contest, both of them pulling on the disc harder and harder, spinning it round and round faster and faster until even Jace was laughing, exhilarated, their hands side by side on the disc, whirling as if dancing –

Then it was the Slingshot, a 150 ft drop that ripped a totally-faked-what-are-you-talking-about-you-heard-nothing shriek from Simon.

Then the Wild River ride, just because Simon wanted to see Jace get his hair wet.

Followed by the Electro Spin, which reminded them both of the ride from the Dumort, with its motorcycle-style seats and its crazy drops…

By the time they stumbled off the Spin like a pair of drunks, it was nearly time for the park to close. The little restaurants and hotdog sellers were closing up, and if it wasn't quite growing dark, it was definitely getting dark_er_, edging towards twilight. Simon stared up at the sky a little mournfully; he didn't want the day to end.

Jace squeezed his fingers, and Simon looked down at him instantly, a smile summoned to his lips. "Yeah?"

"Do we have time for one more?" The summer heat had dried out Jace's hair; it was soft and silken again, only a lingering dampness on his collar to say they'd ever ridden the Wild River.

"I think so. Maybe just one." Simon looked around. "Do you have one in mind?"

Jace considered. After a beat, his expression carefully careless, he asked, "What about the carousel?"

Simon's throat closed. "Sure," he said quietly. "We can do that."

He wanted to ask, as they stepped into the short queue, why Jace had picked it; the blond had made it very clear today that he loved the fast rides, the ones that spiked his blood with adrenalin and made his heart roar. The carousel was beautiful, all gilt and mirrors and elegant horses prancing on golden pillars like sticks of barley-sugar, but it was not the kind of thrill-ride Jace seemed to like.

But Simon didn't ask, and Jace didn't explain. They waited silently in the queue until the ride attendant waved them on, with only a small frown to see two teenage boys climbing up together; and then the two of them picked out their horses.

The Luna Park carousel was famous all over the world for the beauty of its horses. Where most carousels – at least those that Simon had seen – were painted shiny like plastic in clumsy, cartoonish colours, the horses at Luna Park had been hand-carved from wood thirty years ago by master artisans, and then painted to give a matte, satiny finish. But that only made them unusual, not unique; the reason they were featured on postcards and tourist memorabilia was because they had wings. Each and every one of the Luna Park Carousel's horses had wide, sweeping wings like an angel's, every feather lovingly picked out of the wood. The wings made what might have been only a beautiful merry-go-round into something magical.

Jace made a beeline for a black pegasus with its front hooves raised off the ground as it reared, its ebony wings swept back as if it was about to leap into flight. Its wooden mane and tail streamed behind it, and it was armoured; plates of painted silver metal covered its body and neck beneath a sheet of flowing blue 'silk'. A metal faceplate protected its head, with a curved metal alicorn extending from its brow like a unicorn.

Simon had to suppress a smile; Jace had gone straight for the warrior horse, which didn't surprise him at all. For himself, Simon just climbed onto the horse closest to his lover's, a white pegasus with beads in its mane and a sky-blue harness, one foreleg lifted delicately from the ground. Its wings curved as if to protect those on either side from rainfall.

The makers of the carousel had been careful; the wings of the horses didn't obscure the view. Simon could turn his head and see Jace easily, a little in front of him, guarded by the strong black wings of his armoured horse. As if sensing his gaze, Jace glanced back at him. His smile was almost shy.

"Last go-round, everybody!" The attendant called. "Here we go!"

The music started. Simon clutched the golden pole rising out of his horse's back as the animals began to move, rising and falling in a languid gallop. There were a few young children riding the horses around him, but most of the animals ran to the bright, cheerful music alone.

Simon closed his eyes, feeling the cool metal under his hands and the breeze on his face. It had been a perfect day.

He wished it didn't have to be followed by tomorrow.

The song glowed softly in his mind, a ribbon of gentle light pulling them all along. It was soothingly familiar, and Simon found himself humming along to it under his breath, the horses rising and falling dreamily over the wooden boards. With his eyes closed he couldn't tell how many times they'd made a full circle; twice, three times? Four? Five…

"_Ffffffound you, little ssssssinger!"_ a fanged voice hissed, and suddenly everything was pain.

* * *

><p>NOTES<p>

Song credit goes to Queen, _obviously_. I have taken some liberties with Luna Park. It does exist, but many of the rides mentioned aren't included in the wristbands, and I completely made up the carousel.


	2. Chapter 2

I was mad at the world today, so I decided to spread the misery by posting the next chapter. VOILA!

Some news: my beta Cassie is, for the moment, far too busy to keep up with her beta-ing, and rather than put Runed on hiatus we've agreed that I'm going to continue on my own for the moment. So any and all mistakes are even more mine than usual, and you should feel free to point them out so I can fix them!

But mostly I just want to see you guys cry. SO. Read on, my dears, read on...

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><p>The world broke apart and Simon <em>screamed<em>, instantly undone as claws closed around his throat; they touched his skin and that _sound_ struck like lightning, detonating through his nervesbloodbones _nononononono not again Godnoplease_ and he couldn't hear himself screaming, wasn't aware of being ripped from his horse, couldn't feel his body convulsing, heaving up bile and blood _get it out of me make it stop make it stop __**makeitstop!**_ There was only the song and his hands clapped to his ears in a desperate attempt to muffle it, to stop it shredding through him _(death-song hymn to murderdarknesscoldcoldcold)_ and blood was trickling between his fingers and down his neck, it was everything vilebadwrong made music, the antithesis, it played him, he was its instrument and it was soul-destroying agony searing his mind white-black-red, red-red-dead, beyond words beyond memories burning him alive tearing him apart atom by atom _please no stop stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP!_

A tearing-metal shriek sounded worlds away, and the song cut off mid-note. Simon hit the ground hard and he was coughing, gasping for breath, his throat bruised but the sheer _relief_ drowned out that minor pain –

"Simon, _move!"_ Jace shouted, and Simon's body rolled to its feet without any say from his brain. People were screaming, running, and his bones had turned to water, he was weak and dizzy –

And then Simon saw why everyone was screaming.

"_Simon!"_

He stumbled backwards towards the sound of Jace's voice, unable to tear his eyes away. For an instant he saw the wings and thought _angel_, but it wasn't, couldn't be; it towered over the crowd, ten, twelve, fifteen feet tall, and where Abbadon had been housed in broken flesh with blackened bones this thing was pale and smooth and perfect, almost beautiful. But it was _wrong_, wrong like a blight; the feathers of its wings weren't feathers at all, only feather-shaped scales, black as ink except for the steel-like edge along the primaries, glinting like blades in the dying sunlight.

Sunlight. _Sunlight. _There wasn't much of it but the sun hadn't fully set yet and _what was it doing out in the sunlight?_

It was hissing, ignoring the humans around it as it shook its hand – the fingers ended in hooked claws but the hand itself was smoking, burning, and insight flashed, Simon's hand flew to his neck and felt his blood still wet there, his blood that must have dripped onto this thing's hand when it grasped his throat –

_His blood was burning it – _

Its head snapped around as if it heard the thought, and Simon flinched back still further: its eyes were solid black, twin orbs of jet, and meeting their gaze was like staring down the barrel of a gun. Its face was marked with a vertical black stripe on each cheek, gleaming like ink, and Simon tasted bile.

"Sssssinger!" it hissed, and its teeth were white needles in rows like a shark's but its saliva was black as oil, the inside of its mouth slick and dark and _horrible._ "Little _fabaznil_ –" _Poisonblood_, something in Simon translated automatically, with a side-step because it wasn't quite Enochian, it was younger and darker and rougher but still familiar enough to understand, " – but you are yet only a fledgeling, I think." It flexed its claws, the last of the stinking smoke dissolving away with the gesture; the long razors splintered the light. "I will make this easy for you, singer; lie down and be silenced, and I will spare your friend."

It didn't take a genius to figure that if it was calling him a singer _(as Abbadon had, why, what did it mean why did his blood burn this one what was going __**on**__)_ then being silenced probably meant being dead _(but more, because he remembered Abbadon, remembered falling into those black-hole eyes and feeling everything grow cold and quiet, a smothering silence reaching in to snuff out his heart, the song that was his heart)_. His hand fell to his belt and closed around Simiel, chilled, trying not to be terrified but it was so fucking hard and the people, what were they seeing, how on Gallifrey were he and Jace going to keep them all from getting killed?

He risked a glance around, and nearly sighed with relief; the area was almost empty, the last few stragglers running for the park's gates at breakneck speed. Whatever they saw, it must have been bad enough to convince them not to stick around.

_Now to keep OURSELVES from getting killed…_

"Don't even think about it," Jace said sharply, a tense, sharp note in his voice as if he thought Simon might actually be considering it. The blond reached out and grabbed Simon's arm, pulling him backwards and to the relative safety of Jace's side.

"Oh please, like I would ever fall for that crap, everyone knows the bad guys never stick to their deals. That means no," Simon added in the demon's direction. "No, no, a billionty times _no._" He was babbling and he knew it, but it was a struggle to stop when faced with those implacable black eyes. "Fuck off back where you came from, and all that." He swallowed hard. "Please tell me other Shadowhunters are going to show up soon," he said under his breath.

Jace's silence was answer enough. Alec would know something was badly wrong, but they were too far away for Jace's _parabatai_ to be able to sense their location. And neither of them dared take the time to reach for their phones.

Simon breathed in deeply. "Right."

"Don't think," Jace said quietly, fiercely, without taking his eyes off the demon. "What you said this morning – don't you dare think, Simon. I'm not losing you."

Simon pulled Simiel free from its sheath at his belt. "As long as you understand that it better be fucking mutual. _Simiel!"_

"_Sansavi, Rachiel!" _Jace snapped beside him, and the three seraph blades sprouted like crystalline claws of their own, Wolverine all dolled up in diamonds. "Of course."

"Excellent." Simon forced steel into his spine. "Something wrong with your ears, sulphur-breath?" he demanded loudly. "I said _no._ What are you going to do about it?"

"Sulphur-breath?" Jace asked in a whisper. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Shut up, I am under extreme pressure, you can't expect my best material in these conditions – hey! Did you hear me?"

"I heard, fledgeling. I am merely giving you the chance to reconsider." Abbadon had worn poor Dorothea's corpse like an ill-fitted suit, but the demon with the black stripes on its cheeks was clothed in armour carved from bone, yellowing plates of ivory embellished with insets of shining black metal. It couldn't be human bone, Simon told himself, sickened. The plates were too large. "Do you not know who I am?"

"Should we?" Jace asked. "I've got to be honest, I'm not sure I'd remember you even if we'd met before. Bone armour is so cliché, don't you think?" he asked Simon, who nodded solemnly.

"It's been done," he agreed. _"Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls_… Total copyright-infringement, not original at all, the judges are holding up itsy-bitsy scores for you."

But the demon only smiled like someone watching the antics of two stupid kittens – kittens who were about to be drowned, Simon thought with a chill. "I am Abigor, little singer; sometimes called Eligos by those foolish enough to summon me." Beside him, Jace stiffened. "Ah, your friend knows me after all." Abigor smiled again, and the sight of it was nearly enough to make Simon throw up, all smug pleasure and inhuman teeth and so fucking _wrong!_ "I will give you one last chance, youngling: kneel, now, and your end shall be quick." The smile twisted into a smirk. "It may even be painless."

"Simon," Jace said softly, "run."

The river of fear that had been building in Simon burst its banks with a roar, panic sweeping through him in an ice-cold wave as understanding hit like a bullet: Jace knew this demon, recognised the name, had gone from commanding Simon to fight to ordering him to run and there was no way, no way in any world that could be anything but a disaster; if even Jace didn't think they had a chance –

If even Jace didn't think they had a chance then they were going to die –

_I can't do this I can't do this I can'tIcan'tI – _

"Simon," Jace said again, and Simon saw how white Jace's knuckles were on his blades, how his entire body was _aimed_ at Abigor like a knife ready to be thrown or a falcon about to strike. _"Go!"_

"Not in a million years," Simon whispered. Never_._ Leave Jace to stand alone against this thing? _Never._

Never.

_NEVER._

Simiel _blazed_ up, its steady glow bursting into a conflagration like a star come to earth and Simon _snarled_, feeling his face twist and morph with perfect golden fury; _no, never, how do you DARE,_ and he didn't think, didn't run, the scars on his wrists and cheek burned like fire and his fears snapped off like a light, swallowed whole by his own darkness, by the howl of triumph-defiance-wrath that answered the summons of his rage;

_Never._

_Never._

_NEVER._

"You want me?" he snarled at Abigor, black wings spreading wide behind his eyes – wider by far than this little _sparrow_, wide enough to murder the sun with shadows – "Then _come and take me!"_

"As you wish," Abigor said mildly. It reached up and drew a long, terrible sword from the sheath at its back, and Jace inhaled sharply at the sight of it. Simon didn't blink, didn't flinch even though the part of him that loved Dr Who and rescued spiders and missed his mom like a limb quailed away from the long length of viciously serrated black crystal. It was nearly as long as Simon was tall and it shimmered with an inner fire, a light just like Sanvi's or Anael's but dark, demonic –

"An infernal blade," Jace whispered. He didn't sound afraid, quite, but his voice was drawn tight as a bowstring about to break. "Hodge said they were just stories – "

"Hush, _aikane,"_ Simon crooned, keeping his eyes locked on Abigor. _"And stand side by side against the darkness."_

Jace shuddered beside him. _"And let the shadows howl with despair_,_" _he exhaled shakily.

"_For together we are stronger,"_ Simon whispered. _"Together we are whole."_

He felt Jace go still; felt his lover, not relax, but settle, ready, brace himself –

And Abigor _moved_, faster than Raveners or Forsaken or even vampires, as fast as Abbadon, but this time he had Jace at his side and he would not, could not lose his trance; when the black blade fell neither of the boys were there to meet it, gone like ghosts, Jace left and Simon right and Abigor came after Simon as he'd known the demon would, had to, _singer singer singer_ and _come on, come and get me!_, everything gone ultraviolet and searing white, bright as Simiel, diamond-cut and roaring like a storm, snapping through crisp neon thoughts like flipping through the pages of a book, considering-evaluating-discarding stratagems in strobelight flashes, weighing advantages and disadvantages in milliseconds cool as glass –

Glass. _Reflective. _The sun was setting now, the light fading, but –

_Mirrors and blood, we need – _

Steel flashed in the corner of his eye and he dropped, swinging Simiel up and around with a snarl as he fell; and Abigor's wing swept down, razor-edged primaries spread like fingers reaching for him but the seraph blade was there waiting and the force of the blow drove its wing into the _adamas _sword. It split around the blade and ichor rained down like an oil-spill and the demon _roared_, pain and rage deep enough to shake Simon's bones.

He was up almost before the wing could begin to withdraw, fast, so fast, and he cut again, driving Simiel two-handed between another pair of feather-scales, knowing exactly where to strike for the greatest impact _(don't stop to wonder how you know just _cut_)_ and was rewarded by another enraged shriek, ichor soaking through his shirt and splashed across his face and Simon laughed, leaping back lightly, swinging Simiel in idle, mocking circles.

"Is that the best you can do?" he called. Amused and elated and stalling, distracting, the ichor was cordial-sweet on his tongue and he had to give Jace time to get Alec on the phone –

The wing pulled back, still weeping black blood, and Abigor hissed. "Foolish little singer. Prolonging this will not – "

"Not listening, don't care, _Sandalphon!"_ The blade sprang forth like a ribbon of crystal in his left hand and Simon glanced at the sky and its ebbing light, measuring-calculating and he was already running towards Abigor, flat out, faster than fast, the tall rides and the park's trees made too much shadow –

The infernal sword cut across his vision like a black lightning bolt, slicing through the twilight with its cruelly jagged edge. Simon's arms snapped up but he wasn't strong enough to meet the blow; black crystal met white with a chime like maddened bells and Simon was smashed down to his knees with a cry, his arms shaking under the pressure bearing down on his swords; a mountain's weight, a planet's, Abigor's dark blade held mere inches from his face and Simon's muscles _screamed_, cracking like porcelain with the effort of _not dying _–

"Did you think to take Sandalphon for your model?" the demon mocked, its eyes glinting with satisfaction. "You will not have the chance, fledgeling." The pressure increased, and Simon's arms jerked, the crossed blades pushed closer to his face. "Give up now!"

Simon wasn't listening; there was another voice speaking to him from the shadows pooled in his veins, inhuman instinct unfolding in his head like silver origami coming apart, revealing secrets written in gold runes along the seams; _like this,_ the shadows whispered, ordered, knowledge beyond words tearing through him in a rush, _do this, do it NOW – _

"Simiel," he forced through gritted teeth, a snarl of effort and defiance and _"Simiel,_ _SIMIEL,"_ and with each invocation his _armask__ō_blade burned brighter and brighter until the light of it was searing through his eyelids and Abigor was _howling_, the stink of burning demon-flesh toxic and thick in Simon's lungs and Simon _roared_ the name of his blade, heaving himself up off the ground and throwing Abigor's sword off with his own; driven by Abigor's suddenly unsupported weight it plunged into the earth –

And Jace barrelled into him, knocking him to the ground as Abigor's uninjured wing sliced through the air where Simon's neck had just been. They hit the grass with their blades retracted mid-fall, and Simon scrambled up as Jace rolled to his feet and they bolted, two bullets shot into the twilight. Simon had been here more than once, he should have been the one leading but Jace was a human Google Earth, he couldn't have expected a demon attack here but he'd clearly internalised the terrain anyway, some battle-born sense memorising his surroundings even while he and Simon had been laughing and loving and feeding each other candy floss, and Simon followed him without hesitation.

They ducked into one of the restaurants, a solid-looking building of grey brick with a green slate roof. The lights were still on, and half-eaten meals had been abandoned on the tables. No one had stopped to clean or lock up before fleeing, and Simon stepped around a plate broken on the floor, the fragments gleaming like shards of bone in the light.

"Get your shirt off," Jace ordered, brusquely direct. He crossed to the wall and flicked off the lights, blanketing them in shadow; he moved like something feline and golden, even in the dark. "Hurry up!"

Simon was already stripping; shoving his retracted blades into his belt, he shrugged his jacket to the ground and pulled his shirt up and over his head, and instantly Jace was there, kneeling with his stele in his hand. Simon bit down on his bunched-up shirt to muffle his pained hisses as the _adamas_ wand flowed across his chest, carving black bars of musical Marks into his skin. The melody they made unspooled in his head, dazzling ripples of golden sound as Jace swiftly scribed their measures onto his body – rapid piano-flurry speed, deep bass strength, soft chiming night-vision, unfinished _iratzes_ missing vital beats, ready to be completed quickly if he was injured – the inimical opposite of Abigor's sick song.

"They're on their way," Jace said without pausing from his work. "Alec and Magnus are going to pick up Izzy, and then Magnus will portal them all here." _Sigilo. Silminvar. Xorti. Tharros. _They whispered their secret names to Simon and sang their strength through his skin, kissing him with fire, with stealth, with blessed aim and luck and courage_._ He could feel each one, pulsing, singing, each voice and instrument being woven into a chorus of power. "By the Angel, I don't dare give you any of the permanent runes, not like this!"

"It's fine, it'll be enough," Simon forced out around his shirt.

Jace pushed up the leg of Simon's jeans and drew a last Mark above his ankle; _surefooted_, and it snapped and crackled with percussive thrill, a sharp dubstep measure. "That's all we have time for."

Simon shook out his shirt and pulled it back on. Part of him had registered that Alec was with Magnus, and was distantly pleased for him, but the rest of him was sharp and cold and could hear black feathers rustling like silk and wind behind the music of his Marks. "How long will it take them to get here?"

"Twenty minutes." Quick, clear, without ostentation. Battle-trained and battle-ready; Jace unfolded to his feet and drew a blade. _"Kabshiel."_

"Tell me about Abigor," Simon ordered, putting his jacket back on. Kabshiel had taken a shape that Simon hadn't seen before, a wide-bladed sabre. Its light turned Jace's hair to star-touched silver.

"It commands sixty legions of lesser demons. A General. When the demons find a new world to attack and devour, Abigor's one of those who plans the campaigns. There's been no recorded sighting of it in nearly four hundred years." Jace's golden skin was washed pale by his seraph blade, but his voice didn't waver. "The texts say it knows the secrets of war and prophecy."

"Weaknesses?" Four hundred years, and it had dragged itself out of Hell – _during daylight_ – to see to Simon's execution personally. _Why?_

He already knew the answer. _Because my blood burns it._

"Same as all Greater Demons; sunlight and seraph blades. Not much else."

He thought of _Supernatural. _"Holy water? Salt?"

But Jace shook his head. "Those won't affect Greater Demons. Not enough to be useful."

Dread and impatience roiled; Simon could feel the seconds slipping away from them, a torrent of burning embers. Abigor would find them soon, there wasn't _time_, and Simon felt hot and restless, shifting in his skin. He swiped his tongue over his lips reflexively. "Simiel burns it. There's a restaurant here in the park with mirrors all over the walls – the Luna Grill. Mom and I ate there the last time we were here. If we can get Abigor in there – "

" – We can blast it from all sides." Jace's eyes glittered, and he grinned.

Simon didn't smile. "If the light burns through the armour."

"Even if it doesn't, it should cause enough damage to give the others time to get here." Jace swung his sword testingly, and looked satisfied. "Chinese _dao_," he said, seeing Simon watching. "One of the best designs for getting through armour."

Simon glanced at the windows. He couldn't see Abigor in the darkness, and Kabshiel's light was screwing with his night-vision anyway. But the tension wasn't fading, only building; heat twisted through his veins like molten wire, sharp-toothed and itching and sweet. "You should get out of here."

A pause.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Jace said. In the light of his sword, his eyes were silver and black. "Because I know you can't be stupid enough to actually mean it."

"I wasn't asking." Sweetness in his mouth. His skin felt too tight and he wanted to snarl, wanted to slam Jace up against the wall and _make _him listen, make him _obey_. "I'm telling you to leave. Abigor is after _me_. It's not interested in you. If you go, you'll be safe."

"If you think for one second that I'd take an offer like that," Jace said softly, "then you don't know me at all."

Simon heard the snarl tear out through his teeth without registering that it had come from him, and the urge to pin Jace flat was _blinding,_ the need to bite into Jace's throat until he felt the blond shudder and submit almost overwhelming. "I know you too well!" he snapped, biting back a shout. "I know you fight like it's a game, complete with witty banter and gravity-defying Limit Breaks, and I know it's going to get you killed!" He was breathing hard, struggling, desperate to make Jace see reason. "You have no idea what it felt like, watching Valentine take you away – don't make me go through that again, _aikane,_ I can't do it again, I _can't_ – "

The hard coolness in Jace's face softened – and between one breath and the next his _aikane_'s arms were around him, holding him together and Simon hugged back reflexively, fiercely, frantically, clasping Jace to him as if that could keep him safe.

"Don't make me," he whispered into Jace's shoulder. "I can't, I can't, _please_ don't make me..." He was shaking, shaking apart, he couldn't _breathe_; this, this warm, living body against his, how could he lose this? How could he survive it if this skin turned cold, if the light in those eyes went out forever? "You don't know what it was _like!"_

"Yes, I do." Jace tensed, his body suddenly stiff against Simon's. His embrace tightened, but he didn't continue at once; Simon could feel him struggling.

"I was across the room," Jace whispered finally. "And you were facing Abbadon. Do you remember?" His voice was low, low and brittle. As if it was taking everything Jace had to keep it from breaking. "I saw you fall to your knees, and I couldn't help you, I couldn't _reach_ you. And Clary came, _she _saved you, but you – you crumpled, Simon."

Jace's grip was bruising, but Simon barely noticed. He was frozen in place.

"You weren't breathing in that truck," Jace whispered. "There was no pulse. I watched you die, and there was nothing, _nothing_ I could do." His fingers curled in the back of Simon's shirt. "You knew there was a chance you could get me back. You had hope. I had _nothing_, Simon. You were gone, and I was never, ever going to get you back."

He hadn't even been able to grieve, with Alec dying and the girls breaking down and the Cup to get safely back to the Institute. There hadn't been time, and he'd stepped up and down what he had to do with his heart screaming itself to death in his chest, and Simon pressed his face deeper into Jace's shoulder, the sting of tears building behind his eyes.

_I'm sorry._

His _aikane_'s lips brushed Simon's temple. "But then I did," Jace said softly. "You came back to me, like a gift from the Angel. So how can you imagine that I would leave you now?"

It was like drowning, this kind of love, like flying and falling; weightlessness and exhilaration and terror, disbelief and death and bliss, brine pouring into his lungs and the pressure of the sky crushing his bones. Too intense, immense, to be real.

Or be safe.

"_Ya'aburnee,"_ Simon whispered, because nothing else could possibly come close to encompassing the ocean in his veins, the sea lapping at his breastbone. He turned his head and found Jace's mouth desperately, sparks catching the moment they touched and pyres coming alight, waves smashing against dark cliffs; there were sharp, jagged edges in it, in their kiss, love and fear making them both frantic and clumsy, hearts racing because there really wasn't time to touch but they had to, they _had_ to.

What if this was the last time?

After an ouroboros moment, Jace suddenly broke away, his head turning sharply towards the door. "I hear something," he murmured. He held his _dao_ two-handed. "We need a back door."

Simon breathed deeply and drew Simiel without invoking it. Waiting, side-by-side with his _aikane_, and he couldn't think of his mom in her coma, couldn't think about not being there when she woke up, about not saying goodbye – "I don't think we're going to get the chance to find one," he said evenly, because even he heard it that time –

And the front wall disappeared in the strike of a match, immolated like a camera flash, there one second and then just – _gone;_ gone in a searing blast of black fire. It swept across the wall like an ebony curtain and the brick and metal collapsed into ash beneath its roaring caress and the anti-light, the glowing darkness, burned Simon's eyes and into his brain and flipped a switch, tripped a wire, struck a fuse and burned away every mote of fear, every shadow of panic. Wrath like light near blinded him in its place, fury and bloodlust like the taste of steel and stars on his tongue, his new runes singing a war-song through his skin and when the flames cleared he was ready, he was _there_, invoking Simiel with a cry of rage and Abigor's wings were spread to block their way but Simon lunged fast, so fast, and when he swung his blade Simiel sliced through the scales as if they were only coloured paper. They parted like water around his sword and Jace was right behind him and they both tore through, darting through the bleeding hole in the demon's wing and only the fact that the mirrors were more likely to kill Abigor could make Simon run from engaging it further –

Only to skid to a stop as a wall of black fire streaked in front of them, cutting them off. The boys whirled around and Abigor held a hand outstretched, six fingers spread wide and ringed with serpents of dark matter. "Not this time," the demon said, and even as Simon spun he saw the river of flames circle around, enclosing them on all sides. They gave off no light but seemed to suck it in, like a void in the world cut into the flickering shape of flames and fire, but the heat of them –

Valentine had used demon fire to burn down the Morgenstern manor – it had killed Jonathan –

And Simon wished that Jace had gone without him.

Abigor lowered its hand. "Enough running like rats," it said. The sun was all but gone, the sky a wash of deepening sapphire and royal purple, only a few bronze-touched clouds to hint at the power that could have reduced the Greater Demon to dust. "Do not dishonour your blood any further, anunnaku. Stand and face me so this can be ended."

Jace snorted. "What do demons know about honour?"

Abigor smiled. "Perhaps more than the Nephilim."

_Anunnaku._ It wasn't an Enochian word. "The blood that burns you, you mean?" Simon asked coldly. Trying not to think of the flames at his back, of Jocelyn in the hospital, of Jace at his side, who would fall with him if he fell – "That blood?"

"The blood that makes you more like my kind," Abigor said, "than _his."_ It nodded mockingly at Jace.

Simon stared at the Infernal's smile, at the sharp points of its teeth. The words made no sense – until, with a quick flash like the fall of a guillotine, they did.

"Don't listen to it," Jace said, "Simon, _don't,"_ but Simon barely heard. He felt himself stumble backwards, away from the truth, felt Simiel slip from his fingers as horror rose in him like a tide of ice, realisation as deep and dark and cold as an arctic ocean.

'_More like my kind than his.'_

_Like my kind_

_My kind_

_And you thought Valentine's revelation was the worst there could be,_ some part of him whispered, and if he could have breathed Simon might have laughed, bitter and broken as something in him broke right through –

"Simon, it's a _lie,"_ Jace said fiercely. "Demons do that, they lie, they lie just for the sake of it – "

_Infernal._

"There is no reason to lie," Abigor said, "when the truth is the better poison."

_Demon._

"You weren't there," Simon whispered. "I killed him and _laughed_, Jace."

_**Monster.**_

It explained everything. The ebon tide of inhuman rage that swept over him without warning. The strength to sever a man's head in a single blow. The merciless brutality; the exhilarated, elated violence. The black wings in his mind. The _laughter_.

It explained it all.

"Demons can't have children with Shadowhunters." Jace's eyes were fixed on Abigor, but his attention was dangerously split between the demon and Simon _(between the demon and the demon, between the two monsters, all this time and he's a monster too)_. This wasn't the time to process it, this wasn't the place to let the bullet-bite shock take over and snap Simon back into a heart-maimed teenager, but Simon couldn't help it; the hellfire, the danger, the gleam of Abigor's sword – everything beyond his skin had gone numb and unreal as everything within had turned to frozen despair. "Simon, it's a _lie,_ now pick up your blade and – "

_Does mom know? Was that why she wanted us to leave for the summer, did she figure it out, did she guess that this thing in me was waking up? What is it, what am I, tell me there's an antidote to this poison in my veins – _

_A poison so strong it burns demons – _

Simon had stumbled back in his shock; Jace was slightly in front of him, angled protectively between him and Abigor. But Jace was distracted. He did not turn his back on the Greater Demon but his gaze was on Simon, his lips parted to offer comfort –

_(As if anything could comfort _this_)_

Whereas Simon's eyes were still turned forward – unseeing, struck blind by revelation –

Until a slash of movement called his gaze, and he saw Abigor's hand close into a fist.

The ring of black fire suddenly shrank inwards, snapping tight like a noose and the _enkeli_ Mark on Simon's arm came alight in a blaze of gold and Simon didn't think, couldn't think, lunged for Jace's wrist and Simiel flew from the ground into his right hand with the flames just inches away –

_They sent a Greater Demon out in daylight to kill you – _

He thrust his seraph blade towards the sky, Simiel's hilt laid against the burning _enkeli_ on his wrist, Jace pulled tight against his chest just as the flames closed tight around them –

_Your blood is poison to them – _

"_SIMIEL!"_ Simon screamed, not knowing how he knew to do it only that it was do or die –

_**They are afraid of you – **_

And night turned to day.

_**As they should be.**_

Light _detonated_ from the torch in Simon's hand, an ocean of it, a supernova to outshine the sun and sear all dark things to ashes – light that was richer and more aurelian than sunlight, light that whipped and stormed around Simon and Jace like a tornado of fire and he could hear it, Simon could hear it, a sound like nothing he'd ever heard but that reforged his bones to benitoite and his every nerve-ending to opal – a song of war and wrath and majesty beyond bearing, beyond mortal comprehension. Standing upright under it was like holding up the sky; Abigor's black flames raged just beyond the wall of golden light and Simon felt himself torn in half, clutching the seraph-blade-turned-beacon as his hand threatened to shatter, as the sword anchored the blinding light through his _enkeli _rune and it was like being a lightning rod, grounding all that power through his body-sinew-_blood_, that poison blood boiling in his veins until it howled up and out of his throat, an inhuman _scream_ of agony-defiance that had Jace clutching him tighter, shouting to be heard over the roaring light, "I'm here, I have you – "

He could feel the weight, the _pressure_ of the hellfire bearing in on them, but he and Jace stood at the centre of an unbreachable ocean that would not fail, would not fall as it lit the space, the park, the _world_ – Simon wouldn't let it fall, would _not_ let go and release it, this pinnacle of light that must be visible from the moon, that danced and descanted through him like a meteor shower – because Jace felt too fragile and mortal in the curve of his arm, pressed against his chest, flesh and blood that could be broken and lost and Simon would not, _would not_ let that happen – he _snarled_ and sable wings snapped wide behind his eyes, monstrous or not he didn't _care_, not when it gave him the strength to hold Simiel higher, to anchor the solar storm around them more surely. Beat and breath and they still weren't immolated; the incandescent light lashed and tore around them in an inferno but Simon felt only a gentle warmth against his skin, a breeze carding through his hair like fond fingers.

It was only beneath his skin that it ripped him apart.

_They are afraid of you – __**and they should be.**_

Simon cried out again in counterpoint to the song of the fire, the scream a hymn of rage and rebellion – _I can bear this, I can and I will and __**you are right to be afraid**__ –_

_**Geh ciaofin vl**__ – _

_**Are you scared yet**__** – **_

And then the hellfire was gone, the crush of it against Simon's awareness snuffed out as if it had never been, leaving him momentarily dizzy. But he didn't have long to consider it; he blinked and the auroral pillar of seraph-fire retracted, withdrawing and narrowing to a single spinning point like a star six or seven feet above Simiel's dazzling point. It pulsed, once – like a heart, like a quasar – before plunging downwards, a streak of gilt flashing into the _adamas_ blade –

Simon flinched, expecting the ball of fire to go through Simiel and into his _enkeli_, into _him_ – but it didn't. Instead Simiel shone golden, momentarily jewelled in citrine and topaz, rays of amber and aureate light pinwheeling in a slow, lazy circle around the two boys.

When they had marked out a full rotation, the light dimmed, softening back to the seraph blade's normal silvery phosphorescence, and Simon shakily lowered his arm. If Simiel hadn't locked against his palm, he would have dropped it; every muscle felt like overstretched elastic.

"Simon?" Jace's hand found his cheek; his voice was drawn tight. "Are you all right?"

His _enkeli _Mark was black again, Simon noticed numbly. "I feel like I'm going to pass out," he managed.

Jace dropped his hand to Simon's shoulder, supporting him. "Try not to." Wryness flickered through the words, there and gone beneath Jace's worry. "That – whatever that was – didn't get rid of the demon."

_You have got to be fucking kidding me._

But when Simon turned to look, Abigor was making no move to attack. In the glow of the lampposts dotted around the park, it was clear that the Greater Demon was _kneeling_, head bowed over the hilt of its midnight sword, which rested point-down on the earth. For a moment, Simon could only stare. Abigor was posed like a warrior swearing fealty in WoW, but with an added detail the orcs and night elves could never replicate; the demon's huge wings were laid flat against the ground, in what was unmistakably a submissive gesture.

It made Simon's stomach twist uncomfortably.

"I beg your forgiveness, anunnaku," Abigor said without raising its head, and Jace did not move, did not tense or start, but Simon felt his _aikane_'s keen surprise through the grip of Jace's fingers on his shoulder. "I was not told that you had been claimed."

_Claimed...? _

"Claimed by what?" Jace asked sharply. Simon hadn't the strength to ask, could barely keep himself upright with Jace's help.

Abigor looked up then, the black stripes on its androgynous face gleaming like wet ink or blood in the lamplight. It was hard to see where a wholly black eye was looking, without whites or pupil to go by, but Simon thought that the demon glanced from him to Jace and back again.

"If you do not know, _zurnzeaiz_, it is not my place to tell you," it answered the blond finally.

_Zurnzeaiz. Swornsword._ Again, it wasn't quite Enochian – but close enough that Simon could unknot the gist, could make at least a literal translation. _Swornsword_. What did that actually mean?

A quick glance at Jace showed that he didn't know either.

_But it's not going to kill us,_ Simon realised belatedly, struggling to make sense of what had just happened – and what had changed. The fire that had answered him when he called on Simiel – Abigor had knelt for it. Knelt to Simon because of it. Changed its mind completely about the execution it had been ordered to perform.

It made no sense at all.

Without taking his eyes from the demon, Jace squeezed Simon's shoulder. "Simon, ask it who claimed you."

"You misunderstand, Shadowhunter." Abigor's wing was still bleeding, dripping oily ichor onto the grass. "If the anunnaku's...patron...has not made themselves known, I will not do so. I have not the right. Nor do I seek the final death just yet." This last said wryly.

It looked to Simon. "May I have your leave to depart, anunnaku?"

"Oh, sure," Simon said unthinkingly. "Please, go. Wouldn't want to make you late for Satan's tea party, or whatever appointment comes after _18:15 – murder teenagers in amusement park." _

Abigor looked puzzled, but evidently took this for permission. Without another word, it lifted its wings from the ground and in a single sweeping gesture, enfolded itself in a cocoon of razor-edged feather-scales. Serpent-like shadows leapt up from the earth and swallowed the demon whole, and when they disappeared, Abigor was gone with them.

Just like that.

"How about now?" Simon asked weakly after a minute, both of them still staring at where the demon had been. "Can I pass out now?"

Jace was already turning away; he must have sensed his _parabatai_'s approach, because Simon heard familiar voices somewhere behind him, Alec's and Izzy's, and presumably Magnus was with them too.

Simon looked up at the sky, exhausted by the thought of the questions and explanations that would have to come now. As if he wasn't drained enough already; he felt like an illusion, a wavering mirage that would dissolve at any moment.

A movement dragged his gaze down, towards the roof of the restaurant where he and Jace had taken such momentary shelter. Simon squinted, trying to see through the shadows. It was nearly full night now, but it looked like something was up there – something big enough to be human.

Or another demon.

"Jace..." Simon choked, cold venom biting deep into his throat. "Jace, there's somebody on the roof. There's – there's something – "

The words slipped away from him. No longer made of flesh and bone, but skin stuffed with poison-soaked cotton that couldn't stay upright, strong, awake for one second longer. His bones deliquesced all at once, and the last thing he heard was Isabelle saying "Don't tell me we missed all the fun," before he fell like a star.

And it all went dark.

* * *

><p>NOTES<p>

_Fabaznil_ – poison-blood in demonic Enochian.

Abigor is a Commander of 60 legions in Hell, 'skilled in secrets of war and prophecy'.

_Geh ciaofin vl_ – are you scared yet? (Enochian)

Those of you who have watched _Ancient Aliens_ and similar shows might be familiar with the term _anunnaki_, which is the plural of _anunnaku_. Don't take any of them as trustworthy info for Runed; I'm more interested in the etymology of the word than I am the mythology, as it has bearing on Simon.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, chapter three was getting insane (and insanely long) so I split it. At this point I'm estimating that this fic will be five/six chapters long...but we'll have to wait and see.

(No more than ten. If it passes ten chapters, I'm quitting life).

Once again, this was written without a beta (CASSIE I MISS YOU!) so any and all mistakes are mine even more than usual.

This chapter also comes with a **TRIGGER WARNING** for violence and violent sex/dub-con.

* * *

><p>"<em>Simon!" <em>

Jace's panic was a flash fire in Alec's chest, igniting in a blinding rush that seared all conscious thought to ash; Alec lunged, knowing-sensing where Jace would be, the two of them hands of the same body, directed by the same mind. Jace caught Simon's shoulders and Alec grabbed the brunet's hips and they eased him down carefully, Jace cradling Simon's head to protect his skull from the hard ground.

"What happened, what's wrong with him?" Alec asked, but Jace just shook his head, his eyes gone wild and frantic. His fear – _fear_, real and bitter and biting – beat at Alec like fists gloved in ice, and they were close enough for Jace's thoughts to cut through him like razors, his fear ripping their bond wide open; _)not again not again not again_ –_ (_

Alec's fingers flew to Simon's throat, but saw that the boy was breathing before he had to touch skin. Relief nearly took _his_ breath away, and he thought a prayer of gratitude to Raziel that he didn't have to tell Jace that his brother was dead.

"Let me have a look at him," Magnus ordered, and Alec stood up out of the way, making room for Magnus to kneel down beside Simon. Fingers wreathed in amethysts and pink sapphires spread wide over Simon's chest – and whipped away almost at once. "Stop touching him," Magnus ordered sharply, "Alec, get him away from Simon _now,"_ and Alec didn't have the bond with Magnus that he did with Jace, didn't have the warlock's thoughts nestled in and entwined with his own, but the strange, urgent tone in the warlock's voice had him obeying without question; he leaned down and grasped Jace's wrist to haul him up and drag him away –

And the moment he touched Jace, he felt it; an insatiable sucking _pull_ as if a black hole had gotten lodged beneath Jace's skin, blue goldstone teeth buried in Jace's psychic jugular and drinking him down, devouring him whole. Alec touched his _parabatai_ and the hunger engulfed _him_, lashed out and latched on like a leech dropped from Yggdrasil, sucking on his energy in a whitewater rush –

He staggered, almost driven to his knees by the shocking drain, but then Izzy's whip snapped around his waist and wrenched him back and he pulled Jace with him, didn't let go, would never let Jace go –

And as abruptly as it had started the drain was gone, snapped off like a light. Jace sank to his knees, and it took all Alec had to guide his fall instead of dropping him.

"What the hell was that?" Izzy demanded. She looped her whip back around her wrist, looking pale as she glanced between her brothers. "Well?"

Jace shook his head, unable to speak. He felt light and empty on the other side of the bond, like a boy made of dandelion fluff. Alec held him tight.

"He's been almost completely drained of aetheric energy," Magnus said. "And somehow he's figured out a way to pull it out of other people." A hard blue light wove around his graceful hands like gloves, and he reached out above Simon's chest, this time careful not to touch him.

"You're talking about Simon." Ice speared down Alec's spine as he understood why his _parabatai _felt like a ghost in his arms. "Is Jace going to be okay?"

Magnus glanced at the blond. "He'll be fine. Simon didn't have time to take too much." Seeing Alec's expression, he added, "If he was going to die, he'd already be dead. Give him a few minutes and he'll be back to his usual obnoxious self."

"Would somebody mind explaining in words the rest of us can understand?" Izzy snapped. "What's aetheric energy? And is Simon some kind of psi vampire now?"

"It's what fuels our runes," Alec told her. When Magnus flicked a sharp, speculative look his way, he ducked his head to avoid it.

"Accurate," Magnus allowed. "Common wisdom is that it's what souls are made of. Mana. Life force. Whatever you prefer to call it. But I suspect that what Simon is doing is temporary and will stop once his reserves are full again – not that I understand _how_ he's doing what he's doing, it's technically impossible, but – "

He pointed at the ground, and Izzy gasped as they all saw it in the same moment: the perfect oval of dead and dying grass framing Simon's body. Even as they watched it was still growing, expanding rapidly; Alec could _see_ the blades of grass darkening and withering into dry husks, washed blue by the light coming from Magnus' hands.

"No one seems to have told him that," the warlock said softly.

_Impossible. Impossible._ Alec stared at the dead grass and knew: this was not one of the gifts Raziel had given to the Nephilim. If it had been, it would be too often-used to keep secret, too good a weapon to keep hidden. Neither Hodge's lessons nor the books Alec read in the dead of night had ever hinted at something like this, and his skin crawled as he watched Simon devour a part of the world.

_Like a demon in human skin._

Sensing Alec's revulsion, Jace flinched, his psyche compressing down into sharp, brittle obsidian.

"We need to get him out of here," Magnus said finally. "I don't know if he's limited to the mana in living materials, but since he's already figured out the impossible I don't especially want to wait and see if he can take it out of metal as well." Which would destroy the park, Alec realised quickly, looking around at the tall metal edifices. All the rides... He knew vaguely what an amusement park was meant for, but what in Raziel's name had Jace and Simon been _doing_ here? "I think I can make him safe to move if you give me a moment."

Alec's palm had moved between Jace's shoulder blades without his consciously being aware of it, automatically sending gentle waves of serene reassurance through the bond, a constant wordless mantra of _I'm at your side/I have you/you are not alone_ that was as comforting as firelight on a cold night. And Jace did feel cold, cold and empty, but he was growing warm again with encouraging speed, the small golden star in his ribcage brightening quickly. It was a relief to know that Magnus was right; Jace's light would be back to its usual brilliance before much longer.

But that his aetheric levels were rejuvenating didn't, couldn't disguise the fact that something else was wrong. Jace had his head bowed, hiding his face, but Alec could feel – something like uncertainty, something shaken and raw with sharp teeth, and it was terribly, achingly familiar.

It felt like that night at Renwicks.

"He – said there was something on the roof." Jace's voice, not quite smooth enough to be mistaken for normal. "Simon. He saw something, just before he passed out."

Izzy drew her whip again. "I'll check it out."

"Wait," Alec said, _I'll come with you_ on the tip of his tongue – but the words crystallised into ice in his mouth as he realised that going with his sister meant leaving Jace, and it was like Abbadon's claws raking through him all over again, ripping him in two –

They both needed him, how was he supposed to _choose_ –

"Go with her," Jace said.

"I'll be _fine_," Isabelle said at the same time – and then she was gone, her long, loping stride taking her swiftly into the darkness.

Alec looked after her, the nervous, skittering ache in his marrow demanding to go after her.

"She can handle herself," Magnus said without looking up. His fingers sketched elegant sigils in the air, some invisible, others drawn with ribbons of light that faded after only a breath. He had beautiful hands. It was hard not to watch them.

And of course, Magnus spoke from experience. He'd been the one facing down a horde of demons with Izzy, not even on Earth but in the between-realms where the demons were stronger, while Alec was uselessly unconscious from Abbadon's poison. Reminding Alec of his failure to protect his sister was _not_ the right track to take. Still, instead of arguing, Alec pulled out his stele and started to draw a night-vision rune on his arm, so that he could keep an eye on her without leaving Jace alone. The building she was heading for wasn't so far away...

"Here, let me." Jace stood up, slightly wobbly, and stole the stele from between Alec's fingers.

Alec jerked his arm away before Jace could touch it. _Your boyfriend just tried to drain your mana!_ he almost snapped, but what he said was, "You probably shouldn't. Not until your aetheric levels are back to normal."

Jace stared at him. The shadows eclipsed most of his face, but there was no good way to disguise the turmoil Alec could sense through their bond. "All right." He handed the stele back.

By the time the rune was done, Isabelle was already on her way back. "This is all I found," she said, holding her hand out so they could see the gleam of metal cupped in her palm. "There was nothing alive up there. Or undead," she added, just for the sake of clarity.

She flicked her wrist and tossed the object to Alec, who caught it out of the air and brought it up to his face to inspect it. It was a five-pointed star, a silver charm the size of his thumb nail. Wordlessly, he extended it to Jace. The blond took it with a blank expression.

And then, in the same moment, the three of them locked gazes in a Lightwood triskele. They needed no words to communicate; the grim understanding flashed between the trio like the fire in their name. A star for the Morgensterns, yes, and who would care for Shadowhunter affairs except another Shadowhunter?

"Whoever it was wanted to be seen," Izzy said softly, and Alec felt Jace's agreement as a flutter of dragonfly wings, green and shimmering.

"Yes, I'm sure the walking ego over there is not at all used to having stalkers," Magnus said, getting to his feet. Alec watched him without meaning to, without realising that he was doing it. The night vision Mark altered your sight, turned everything silvery and silken, and the warlock fit there like gem in a platinum setting, as if the night was something made solely to frame him. "While you three discuss this fascinating turn of events, I'm going to reopen the portal. The containment spell on your little friend won't last long, and I'd like to get him back to my apartment before it fails. If we're all agreed that letting him eat the park would be a bad idea? Yes? Yes? I thought as much."

)0(

_Everything was darkness, and everything was fire._

_Obsidian fire, dark as tongues cut from the night sky, licking up the walls and roaring their claim for all to hear. They gave no light but the heat was staggering, like standing in a forge, enough to stop the breath in Simon's lungs. Poisonous smoke billowed everywhere, charcoal and sulphur, and Simon coughed, pulling up his shirt to cover his mouth._

_Beneath the sound of the flames, he could hear a child crying._

"_Hello? Is anybody in here?" _

_No one answered, but the weeping sounded louder._

"_Hold on, I'm coming!" Simon called. Gingerly, he tried to move towards the sound, but it was an ever-growing maze; without light he could only see the flames as flickers of deeper darkness, shadows blacker than black. The very stone in the walls was burning; the glass in the windows was melting, dripping like water down the panes, and Simon half-thought the oxygen in the air was about to go up in smoke. _

_But when he stretched out his hand, the heat retreated. When he reached out, the flames flinched back, like living things afraid. He stepped forward and they fled from him, adders and asps fleeing a basilisk._

_**Monster.**_

_The crying grew louder. Simon walked through the flames, and they didn't touch him. Part of the ceiling gave out with a crash behind him, but that didn't touch him either._

"_Hello? Can you hear me?" _

_He turned towards a door at the end of the corridor, and like the red sea the fire parted for him, a fragile path of safety. There was enough light, from the window at the end of the hallway, to see a ring of stars engraved in the wood of the door; they glinted faintly with silver gilt. Morgenstern stars. _

_And Simon realised where he was, what – and when – this place must be: Morgenstern manor, the night of the Uprising. The night Valentine had burned this house to the ground, and one of Simon's brothers with it._

_The realisation crossed blades with the crying coming from inside the room, and in a wave of new panic Simon threw open the door – and froze._

_In the far corner, huddled against the flames, was a small boy, lit by the witchlight clutched in his hands. The soft light reflected from hair as pale and silvery as a star, and dark eyes wide and wet with terror, and Simon's heart wrenched in his chest. He could only have been a few years old._

"_Jonathan?" he called, raising his voice so he could be heard over the flames. "Is that you?"_

_The boy nodded, holding his witchlight tight against his chest. "Y-yes. Where're my brothers?"_

_Simon tried to smile, tried not to remember that Jonathan had died in this fire. "They're fine, don't worry about them." The ebony fire was already in here, devouring the pastel wallpaper like strokes of greedy ink. "You and me are going to go find them, okay? We'll – "_

"_Stop!" Jonathan shouted, and Simon did, stopped just as he would have fallen. There was no floor; beginning a few inches from Simon's shoes and ending a foot or two from Jonathan there was only a deep, impenetrable blackness, a terrible void of nothingness and cold. Looking at it was like staring into a black hole._

_Unreal horror and adrenalin raced through Simon, and he gripped the doorway tightly, shaken by the near escape. _

_Jonathan was still crying. "You can't save me. You'll f-fall!"_

_Simon's heart broke in two – and bled a grim determination through his veins, bitter and resolute and strong as a seraph blade. "I'm not leaving you," he swore fiercely. Would his mom have left Jonathan? She had hated him, but if she'd been here, if she could have saved him, would she have let him burn?_

_It didn't matter. Simon wouldn't, _couldn't.

_He pulled back and surveyed the room. The nursery; black flames wreathed a wooden crib, elaborately carved with decorations swallowed by the fire. There was a window not far from Jonathan; if Simon was standing on Jonathan's little island, he could probably reach it. Fire and oxygen; breaking a window would make normal flames worse, but would hellfire be affected the same way?_

_They would have to risk it. A window would get them outside, and they could climb or jump down if they had to._

"_I'm going to run and jump to you, okay?" Simon called. "And then we're both getting out of here!"_

_Jonathan shook his head, holding his knees against his chest. "You should just go," he said, shrinking in on himself. "Everyone will be happier with me g-gone."_

_In that moment, Simon hated his mom. Hated her like he hated Valentine. _

"_I'm not leaving you!" he shouted. Never. Not ever. Not even with the fire on all sides, not even with the bottomless pit waiting under his feet. Not even for his own survival would he, _could _he turn his back on this boy, scared and alone and broken. His own blood, his brother, Jace's fraternal twin – _No._ "Not in a million years."_

_Jonathan stared at him, amazed, and the pieces of Simon's heart throbbed like wounds. _

_He backed up into the corridor, readying himself. "Try to make room for me to land," he yelled – and then he ran._

_He leapt, and – _

_Failed. He fell._

_He heard Jonathan scream and it was that, that which shattered him apart; not fear for himself, not the Lucifer-like plunge into the darkness, but knowing that he'd failed his brother and left him alone to die._

_But the shadows tasted like ichor, thick and sweet and hot on his lips, pouring over his tongue as he fell, pulled down by a drunken gravity; he spun over and over, around and around until he couldn't remember which way was up and which was down, didn't know if he was falling or flying, and the shards of his heart were lost somewhere in the dark, slipped through his ribcage and his fingers and gone, and the demon blood slid down his throat like ambrosia, catching fire in his belly and bleeding into his veins, nitro-glycerine and astrolite and it was so good, so _sweet_ –_

_He slammed onto his back, and_

)0(

jerked awake with a gasp.

"Simon?" He heard a rustle of blankets, a light being switched on, and then a warm hand was cupping his cheek as a familiar face came into view above him, frowning with concern. "What's wrong, _aoiveae-orshé_? Are you all right?"

_Aoiveae-orshé. _Dark star, spoken like an endearment.

Simon stared up at the man, struggling to calm the rushing panic left over from his…dream? Nightmare? "I think so," he said slowly. "Just a bad dream." The details were already fading from his memory, leaving only a smudge of remembered fear, and a tight, molten ache as if his blood was shining, that made him suddenly, sharply aware that he was naked beneath the sheets, and so was his lover.

_Lover? _That felt wrong, somehow. Simon's gaze moved down from the man's face, and caught on the exquisite rune over his heart, a complex, intricate design of swirls and looping knots.

_Yes,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. _He is your _parastathentes_, and you adore him. From the moment you saw him you have been his, and he yours. _

Of course he was. Simon smiled, the strange uncertainty melting away like the memory of his dream. "I'm okay," he promised, reaching up to slide his fingers into his lover's sable-silk hair. The runes on his wrists and fingers gleamed like onyx jewellery. "Really. It was just a dream."

The tension went out of the other man's shoulders. "You're sure? Just a dream, not a vision?"

Simon's eyes caught on his lover's lips. His skin was drawing tight, the simmer of heat in his veins growing stronger, hotter. "I don't think so," he whispered. Without meaning to, he found his fingers trailing down the back of his _parastathente_'s neck, stroking the smooth, warm skin. He traced the shape of his lover's powerful shoulders, the lithe, hard muscle of his upper arms marked with calligraphic runes. They whispered their names to him – _fortis, sabedoria, dexterias_ – and he knew them, from the pages of the Codex and from their places on his own skin.

_The Codex?_ A flash of memory – a book with a battered cover, a voice saying _'it's an old edition,'..._

_He gave it to you for your seventeenth birthday_, the voice said smoothly, _so that you could learn what you are. He taught you everything you know about the Shadow World, and he taught you well._

That was right, he remembered now... But it was vague, smoky, and the heat beating beneath his skin didn't care, was more focussed on the body in front of him, the hard, taut muscle ribboned with black. He could feel his lover's eyes on him as he trailed his fingers down, cataloguing the familiar map of Marks; _enkeli, mnemosyne, forza_... Each one sang beneath his fingertips, a whispering chorus of rippling gold that echoed through him, a low, heated purr vibrating through his bones.

Simon wasn't paying attention; he couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. Not with those molten hematite eyes on him, watching him like prey, like a feast. He kept his own gaze on his lover's chest but the attention made Simon's stomach tighten with electric anticipation, with vicious, simmering _want_. It drew across the hunger from the dream like a whetstone, sharpening it, honing the razor-breath edge until it felt as if Simon's skin would part around it, cut open from the inside. The muscle beneath his touch was hard and taut, drawn tight like a predator waiting to spring, and aroused seemed like too tame a word.

_Remember,_ the voice murmured, and the memory reached up and overwhelmed him; last night, his naked skin against their velvet blankets, the sound of his own voice crying out for mercy. Literally crying, tears on his cheeks and salt on his lips, driven past shame by the hot wet press of his lover's tongue lapping into his core. Cruelly wicked and wickedly cruel, prying him apart until Simon was sobbing, reduced to nothing but an empty vessel literally _dying_ to be filled, incoherent with need, helpless...

A note like struck crystal cut through the other runes, jolting him out of the sense-memory, and Simon paused with his fingers splayed over an _azo_ stamina rune. "This one..."

His _parastathentes_ glanced at Simon's hand, then looked back at him. "You drew that one." His voice was husky.

Simon's mouth went desert-dry. "I did?"

His lover leaned closer. "You did," he breathed against Simon's ear, and Simon almost moaned.

Soft, almost mocking laughter whispered down Simon's spine, rushing like fire through his veins, igniting him. Black velvet and dark furs rustled as the other boy-man shifted, and Simon reached for him, pulling him close even as his lover slid smoothly atop him, powerful, leonine-lean arms caging him in. For a brief second alarm fluttered in Simon's chest, a sudden white flash of _waitnothisisn'tright_, but then it was gone, drowned out by the searing wave of pleasure-bliss as the warm weight of another body settled on top of him, against him, a hard thigh parting his legs; his skin seemed a thousand times more sensitive than it humanly could be, choked with nerve-endings and each one a fizzing sparkler of light under the pressure, the contact. His legs melted open without resistance and his hands flew to his lover's back, gasping, arching into it, his fingertips kissing the metal-smooth ropes of scar tissue snaking down his _para_'s spine –

_Wrong. _It jolted through him; the texture of the scars under his hands wasn't right, wasn't meant to be. Simon froze, disorientated, dizzy with the sense that the world was spinning around him, coming apart around him, cracks shuddering through the fabric of reality on all sides –

_You're not – _

Simon pushed him away and sat up, his breath coming fast and hard not with desire but with something like shock, something like panic. He couldn't get enough air, there wasn't enough air in the room, something was terribly, unutterably wrong –

"Simon?" His _parastathentes_ rolled onto his side, all warm concern. "Hey, talk to me. What's wrong?"

"You're – you – " Simon couldn't articulate it, didn't have the words to explain the choking dread tightening its fingers around his throat, but he flinched away from his lover's reassuring hand. _Wrong, wrong, you're not – _Hardly able to speak, Simon threw back the covers and scrambled out of the bed, panting like an animal caught in a trap.

_I don't know this room. _It was a beautiful room, but he didn't know it. Everything was deepest black and palest white, all onyx and pearl, exquisite but nothing he would have chosen for himself. There was a small fireplace of gleaming black marble, currently housing a knot of flames that burned warm gold, not hellfire-black. An ebony bookshelf took up one corner, neatly stacked with books and elegant, tasteful curios, all in shades of black and white – he dazedly realised that the books had probably been rebound to match the room, unless someone was actually obsessive enough to collect books based on the colours of their covers. Strange black designs were painted here and there on the walls. The full-length mirror propped against one wall was framed in dark wood and decorated with a mother-of-pearl inlay; without his glasses, he was too far away to make out the design. The walls were white, and the thick carpet on the floor looked as thick and soft as snow; gauzy white curtains billowed in the breeze from the open doors that seemed to lead out to a balcony. It was night outside.

And he was sitting on a nest of black velvets and furs, a bed raised up from the floor on a tiered white platform like an altar in a temple.

_And it felt holy, what they did here, didn't it? Holy in the old ways, rich and raw as the rites of Inanna and Dionysius. A divine frenzy of teeth and need, a violent shattering, screaming, bleeding, pleasure so good it was pain and pain that broke open into pleasure – _

_No!_

Simon clutched at his head, trying to tear the thoughts that weren't his right out of his skull. Badly wrong, something was badly wrong and it was like being clothed in dust, coated in ashes and coloured chalk –

He heard a sound like an entire flock of ravens taking flight, a pair of sun-devouring wings spreading wide within his head –

And felt them impeded, checked from unfolding to their full span by some barrier.

If he'd been confused and fearful before, now terror swamped him. Simon whipped around in a circle, disbelief and panic scraping sharp teeth over his jugular – and now that he was looking, with the thick, heavy pressure pressing down on his mind, he could see them. The black designs on the walls weren't modern art, weren't even painted; the pictograms were made of black crystal set directly into the wallpaper, a dizzying array of arcane symbols – he recognised the Key of Solomon from _Supernatural_, but there were more, so many more, circles within circles, septagrams and spiky knots of thorn-and-razor sigils – and he was caught in them. Like a sparrow trapped in a carnivorous hedge, he could feel the vicious, deadly hooks snagging at those ebony wings, knifing deeper the more they – he – struggled; tearing at him, bleeding him, the more he fought the brighter the sigils shone, bars of a cage that was shrinking around him, pressing in on him, forcing his wings to bend or break…

_Not crystal,_ something whispered. _Lilithium._

"Don't fight it, Simon," his lover said. His voice was soft and soothing, like warm velvet. "It's all right, just let it happen…"

Simon sank to his knees with a groan, dizzy and weak, and he felt his lover's arm wrap around his waist, keeping Simon from falling off the bed's dais. He could swear the symbols grew stronger as they worked on him – feeding on him, the thorns embedded in his psyche throbbing like a vampire's fangs. But it was more than that… As they took, so did they give; ephemeral poison pumped into him with every heartbeat, and as Simon's limbs grew weighted, trembling with weakness, his blood began to simmer. A warm, heavy sweetness unspooled from the needles stabbing into his chakras, pooling in the pit of his stomach like fine brandy, like adrenalin.

"No," he whispered, pleading, but no one was listening. No one cared.

Distantly, he felt himself picked up, cradled in strong arms against a rune-kissed chest. His skin was drawing tight, flushing with heat, every artery dilating to speed the spread of the lilithium-born virus, and every cell of his body was pulsing was a pleasure that was pain, a pain that was pleasure. It was so rapidly becoming unbearable, a sugar-coating on his nerves becoming acidic, awful ecstasy –

He fell against the blankets, dropped, and instantly curled in on himself, hugging his knees as he rubbed his cheek against the dark furs. Oh God, God, he needed – he had to get it _out_, building and burning, eating him alive from the inside – fangs of fire – he could hear laughter, wild and fey, echoing through his head – a howl of triumph spiralling up and up and _up_ as black wings fluttered against the walls of a cage –

He groaned, wrapping his arms around his stomach as he bowed forward. His cheek against the blanket – soft, so soft –

_ – _

_H-help me –_

"Oh, Simon." He heard footsteps, felt his lover's approach and turned to it like a flower to the sun, starved for sensation. "It's all right, _aoiveae-orshé_. It's safe. You can't get past the bindings no matter what you do."

_This isn't right..._ And yet when the callused hand touched his cheek Simon moaned, pushing into the contact desperately. He couldn't stop himself, even though it hurt, shards and splinters dragging through over-sensitized skin. _What's... _"...wrong with me?" he slurred.

A thumb brushed Simon's lower lip, and it was pain, it hurt beyond words, a note like struck crystal singing through his bones and blood and every cell of his body convulsed with it, sharp and terrible and screaming for more. "It's the bindings," his _parastathentes _said softly. "So you don't have to be afraid. You can't hurt anyone. You can be yourself here, _aoiveae-orshé_. You can let go."

With awful gentleness, the fingers slipped down to his jaw, tenderly turning Simon's face up and out of the blankets, and Simon was helpless to resist, his nails digging into his arms as his eyes met dark black ones, and somewhere inside he'd already known.

"S-Sebastian," he choked, and Sebastian smiled.

)0(

"Through here," Magnus ordered, holding the door open for Alec and his burden. "Set him down on the bed."

It was a heavy burden, Alec thought, carefully stepping sideways through the doorway so as not to knock Simon against the frame. Jace might have stayed with Isabelle to handle the mundane police, but Alec could feel his _parabatai_'s fear and concern for the boy in his arms like ocean waves; retreating briefly, momentarily, before returning in a bitter rush, helplessly seeking, unstoppable. Simon wasn't Simon; he was all of Jace's dreams for the last month. He was Jace's absences the last few weeks, and his hidden joy; Jace's clumsy attempts at blocking the bond for hours at a time; the devastated look on Jace's face when Simon had crumpled like a doll.

He was a hell of a lot more than Jace's brother.

Alec set him gently down on Magnus' bed. Even now Alec couldn't help but notice, with a flutter of jittery warmth, that Magnus had replaced the plain mattress that had been here before with a grandiose four-poster, a ridiculous concoction of crimson and ebony silk that nonetheless made Alec's mouth go a little dry. It was too easy to imagine how beautiful Magnus' dark-honey skin would look against all that red and black...

Simon's head lolled against a pillow, and without thinking Alec cupped his skull to adjust its position so Simon didn't wake with a wicked crick in his neck. If he woke. Only the rise and fall of his chest gave any sign that he was still alive.

_He has to wake up._ Alec couldn't imagine what Jace would do if Simon didn't.

"You should step back now," Magnus said, and Alec obeyed, getting out of the warlock's way – and then standing awkwardly, no longer sure what his purpose here was, not knowing where to look. As Magnus bent over Simon, Alec shoved his hands in his pockets and stole a glance around the room. Magnus had redecorated since Alec had been in here last. A cloud of tiny fairy-lights – chips of witchlight strung on silk threads – hung from the ceiling in a circle around the new bed, a curtain of golden stars that cast light on the newly-painted black walls. A thick black carpet, as fluffy as fur, covered the wooden floor, and the blue dressing table had been either been replaced by or turned into a bright pink one, its mirror jewelled with softly glowing light-bulbs.

Alec had never seen anything like it. No Shadowhunter he knew had a room like this, full of things chosen just because they looked nice. He thought of the Lightwood manor in Idris that he'd rarely seen, and the townhouse in Alicante, where he and Izzy and Jace had spent a handful of summers without Alec's parents. Both places were richly furnished, grand and gleaming with mahogany and marble, and crystal chandeliers that dripped facets like rain. They were beautiful fortresses, meant to impress and intimidate and, in the event of disaster, keep safe the family that dwelt within. But their beauty was a cold beauty, cold and austere, intended as a weapon. Nothing in a Shadowhunter's life was beautiful just for the sake of beauty.

And those chandeliers had been paid for with warlock blood, Alec thought, feeling sick as Magnus whispered under his breath, gesturing liquidly above Simon's prone body.

But even as Alec looked over, Simon's head moved on the pillow, shifting restlessly, feverishly. Magnus' voice was a soothing ribbon of sound, low and murmuring as he chanted words Alec couldn't hope to understand, but for all that even Alec could feel the energy building in the room – centred around Simon, like a cage of invisible lightning – whatever the warlock was doing only seemed to be making it worse. Simon's brow was still slick with sweat, as it had been since they'd portalled to Magnus' apartment, but now he was panting, his skin flushed red. Magnus traced glowing sigils in the air with a graceful fingertip, and Simon whimpered, a sound like a terrified werewolf cub; he was panting, and his eyes rolled beneath his closed lids, darting back and forth as if he were seeking a way out. But he didn't wake up.

Alec wanted to ask Magnus exactly what he was doing, but he didn't want to risk breaking the man's concentration. Instead he focussed on sending calm reassurance back to Jace.

He received a wave of relief in response, and understood from long experience that his sister and _parabatai _were done and heading this way.

Simon mumbled something, and Alec's attention snapped back to the tableau in front of him. "What's he saying?" he asked softly, hoping that Magnus could bear the interruption.

Magnus didn't answer. Alec hesitated, unsure whether he should ask again or not – was Magnus ignoring him, or had he not heard the question?

"_Agé," _Simon whispered, and the terrified plea struck Alec's heart like a shard of ice. The word meant nothing to him, but he'd never heard Simon sound like that – never heard _anyone _sound like that.

As if he were caught between sobbing and screaming.

"_Agé, obelis agé – "_ Simon's fingers curled into fists in the sheets, and he was still panting, almost hyperventilating, and it was too much, too awful, there was no way Jace could miss Alec's confused alarm and no way to disguise the cause; strong emotion always strengthened their bond, turned the cord that bound them into a chain and Alec felt Jace's attention turn towards him, _snap_ towards him like a thrown blade.

"_Agé, gnay ipé, obelis – "_

It was too much – the fear they shared was a tightrope between them, flinging open the gates of flesh and self and forging a trapdoor that swallowed Jace whole in a dark flash. Alec blinked and Jace was _there_, sharing his skin, looking out through his eyes in a way that wasn't supposed to be possible without the battle-trance to bind them. They'd never managed to skindance outside of battle before, and it had never been like this: like a stake slamming into his chest, a pressure beneath his skin that threatened to break him open in a blaze of silver and jade. It was supposed to be natural, smooth and easy like two streams merging into one, but he wasn't ready and neither was Jace and instead of slotting into place Jace was dragged in where there was no room, all jagged burning edges and the screech of rust-on-rust.

But Jace was terrified, and Alec made himself small within his own body, curling in on himself to give Jace room. This wasn't skindancing, wasn't merging into one whole in two bodies to better hunt demonkind; but Jace needed and Alec gave, because he could do nothing less. He gave his skin and his hands, his eyes and ears and lips, his tongue and the throb of his pulse in his veins; because Jace needed them Alec poured them into his grasp as carelessly as if they were buttons or bobbins, common and worthless as dirt.

_Take them, take them all. Take everything you need._

He felt the bright gleam of his _parabatai_'s gratitude, and then Jace pulled him on like an ill-fitting glove and moved his lips;

"What's happening? What's wrong with him?"

Magnus looked up sharply, his mien that of a startled cat. He opened his mouth to answer – and then his eyes narrowed, suddenly piercing. The warmth drained out of his gaze in an instant.

"I don't care what he is to you," the warlock said coldly over Simon's frenzied murmuring. He turned back to Simon, resuming his spellcasting. "But I don't work with _gidim_."

The class of demons capable of possession. The knowledge flashed seamlessly from Alec to Jace and Jace stiffened in Alec's skin while Alec bristled on his _parabatai_'s behalf; it wasn't possession, it was _channeling,_ he'd _consented_, and anyway Jace hadn't intended for this to happen, hadn't done it on purpose –

"Alec let me in," Jace said, and it was Alec's voice but the words were shaped differently, the intonation was all Jace. _(But it wasn't your voice that told him, _Alec's subconscious whispered, _he looked into your eyes and he knew you weren't the one looking back at him – just from your _eyes_ – )_ "What's wrong with my brother?"

"The simple answer is that I don't know," Magnus answered, and his voice was cool but it emerged through gritted teeth. The inner sides of his hands glowed blue and gold from his wrists to his fingertips, and he held his palms almost against Simon's temples. "I'm feeding him mana, but his energy levels keep spiking in ways I've never seen before; his body is reacting as though he's been poisoned, but I can't find any venom; he's speaking a language I _know _he doesn't speak – "

A memory, Jace's this time: Magnus in this very room, the night Jace had gone alone with Simon to the Dumort and almost gotten himself killed; _'I've watched you grow up, I've been through your memories…'_ Of course Magnus would know what languages Simon spoke, he'd been the one to craft and renew the block on Simon's mind, but that meant –

What could it mean? How could Simon speak a language he didn't speak?

"Enochian?" Jace asked before Alec could puzzle it out. His voice – Alec's voice – sounded strange, even accounting for the person using it.

"Do they teach all you idiot Nephilim your mother-tongue now?" Magnus asked. "How did you know that?"

Jace didn't answer. "What's he saying?"

"He's terrified," Magnus said bluntly, "and not of me." He shot a blazing look over his shoulder at Jace. "Go back to your own body and get here as quickly as you can." It was not a request.

Jace hesitated. He looked down at Simon with Alec's eyes, and longing sweet and terrible as an _armask__ō_ blade pierced Alec through the heart. He couldn't breathe for the intensity of it; it was as awful as it was incredible, a kind of agony, a kind of ecstasy, a kind of need. He wanted to –

It cut off abruptly, so suddenly that Alec was left reeling.

_)How do we do this?(_ Jace asked, all business, and Alec could feel him trying to pull away – but after all, they didn't know how they'd done this in the first place, never mind knowing how to undo it.

_)I think – (_ Alec hesitantly felt around, and they both saw it in the same moment. In the end it was easier than ending a skindance, because instead of being merged into one mind they were only sharing a body, and Alec grasped the 'glove' so that Jace could pull out of it, and they slipped apart in a disorientating rush.

Alec gasped, sucking in air like a man saved from drowning. Holding himself in tight and small to give Jace control had been like holding his breath; his lungs weren't actually burning from the effort, but something else was, some psychic thing that made the world sway dizzyingly around him as he found his bearings again.

Wordless apology came from Jace, and a matching disorientation; it couldn't have been any easier for his _parabatai. _What had happened to Jace's body while he was driving Alec's?

"He's gone," he said quietly, just so Magnus would know.

"Good." The warlock didn't turn to look at him this time, remaining focussed on Simon.

Alec wanted to ask how Magnus had known it was Jace wearing Alec's skin, how he had been able to tell who he was talking to from a single glance. But the lines of Magnus' back were tensed, his shoulders bunched tight beneath the violet velvet jacket he'd worn for their date, and Alec didn't think Magnus needed the distraction right now. Instead, silently, he came to sit down on the bed behind Magnus and reached for the warlock's shoulders.

Magnus jerked a little with surprise as Alec touched him, but didn't protest as Alec began kneading the cruel knots in his shoulders. He relaxed under Alec's hands almost immediately, allowing the contact, and Alec felt a warm glow of pleased pride.

He said nothing as he unpicked the knots in the warlock's muscles one by one, smoothing them away as he'd done for Jace and Izzy for years. But he was terribly aware, despite everything, that this was the closest they'd been since that first kiss, and that they were sitting on Magnus' bed.

Embarrassed by the direction his thoughts were taking – how could he think like this, when Jace's brother was so badly hurt just inches away? – he glanced past Magnus to Simon – and noticed something that had been so unremarkable to Jace that his _parabatai _had taken no note of it; Simon was bloodstained and his throat marked with the grip of Abigor's fingers, but above those bruises were others, and they had been made by human teeth.

)0(

"Now, where were we?" Sebastian asked. He climbed onto the bed, his eyes fixed on Simon in a way that made Simon think of tigers – Sebastian was no lion, he was a Siberian tiger, biggest of the big cats, the most powerful land predator in the world – "Oh, yes. We were going through the Marks you've drawn on me, weren't we?"

Simon shook his head in denial, panting for breath; _no, this isn't right, leavemealone,_ but Sebastian ignored him. His _parastathentes_ caught Simon's right hand like a manacle, so hard that Simon's wrist twinged with pain. "This one," he murmured. He pulled Simon's hand towards his own collarbone, to the rune placed like a seal over Sebastian's sternum. "Do you remember this one, dearling?"

It was – at first Simon thought it was a _desviar_ Mark, a _block_, but no, it wasn't. This Mark had a stronger, louder song than _desviar_ – it was permanent, where _desviar _was temporary. But it was almost, almost the same... The mystery made Simon forget his unease, pierced through the choking fog of toxic desire. It was like hearing a song by your favourite artist covered by an orchestra-and-choir; the core was familiar, but now it made the hairs on your arms stand up, a spine-shivering sound like a Mark Petrie track –

"What is that?" Simon asked. _That's not what _desviar_ sounds like..._

Another shock of memory: his hand against someone else's arm, pale against honey-gold skin, and a strange foreign word that felt like home – _aikane – _

It slipped away like wind through his fingers. His _parastathentes_'s skin was darker than Simon's but it wasn't that gold, not like that, and the Mark under his hand didn't call itself _desviar_, its name was –

"_Vernda,"_ Simon whispered.

_Shield_.

"And this one." Before Simon could understand it, could make sense of what he was hearing from the unfamiliar rune – newness and strangeness, a perfection that caught his breath and a strength to stop bullets – his lover tugged Simon's hand again, pulling it to the _parastathentes_ rune over his heart –

And it was like dying. The bond between them flooded open in a drowning rush and it was a sword thrusting into his heart, black and burning as if new-forged, cutting through every layer of skin and self-awareness straight to his core. Pierced, impaled, sliced open and bared and it was like falling into ebony fire, drowning in it; pried open with smouldering black velvet swallowing him whole, the terrible softness caressing every inch of his skin, slipping into the crater of his chest and satin ribbons parting his lips like tongues, flooding into him, snaking down his throat and flicking switches as they went, onetwothree in a dizzying wave of locks snapping open, fourfivesix_seven_, failsafes coming down, door after door blown wide open like a prison-break and the blade's in so deep but not to slay, no, to open the way instead, cleaving through the bars that keep him caged and he can't scream, can't tell if it's agony or ecstasy or both or neither. Benzoin incense in his lungs like smoke and silver chains looping in moonlight whorls snapping like spun sugar and nightmare wings folding around him, clasping him close holding him tight and it's terror, it's freedom, absinthe and sandalwood and _I have you, I know you,_ held so tight and jade lightning strike-strike-striking and crystal canines sliding so sweetly into his neck, like kisses, like stars he can't stand it, jewels wreathing his wrists and his blood spilling, falling, dripping into the darkness drop by sizzling golden drop and the triumph isn't his but it's thick as smoke, engulfing him from every side, triumph and midnight jubilance calling him out, summoning, the gate is _open_ –

_)Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat_,_(_ his lover whispered through the dark, the words not Enochian gold but tarnished silver and steel, rust-kissed but familiar enough, _I know your every shadow and I stand here unflinching, _Simon understood and his free hand was in his lover's hair, clinging, drowning, it was like a choke collar coming free, the unspeakable _relief! )Zir ix ciasin.(_

_I am not afraid._

Violated, desecrated, some vital human skin ripped open and left bleeding and Simon didn't _care_. He could _breathe_, as if his humanity had been suffocating him, a weight he hadn't known he was carrying and he nearly cried with the reprieve. He didn't have to be afraid here, not even of himself; there was a greater darkness than he and it had him, he could feel its wings still wrapped around him, nothing he could do would break through that hold and it was such a _release_, it was _okay_. He didn't have to fight, didn't have to hide – he was held, acknowledged, cherished, prized – he could give himself up, give it _all_ up.

"Sebastian," he gasped, the sound almost a sob as it tore out of him, "Sebastian – "

"_Niisor, odrax esach,"_ Sebastian murmured – commanded. _Come forth, little brother;_ Simon could feel the imperative wrap like iron around his bones – _"Liis chi ozien. Niisor!"_

_You are mine. Come forth!_

Simon screamed, and _let go_.

He fell; he plunged down through the broken shards of his cage and the scream caught in his throat and became a roar, a harpy's shriek of rage and triumph. He could have fallen forever but his wings unfolded with a Tartarus-snap and the sheer _power_, the glorious void-kissed _rush! _Indescribable-unspeakable, lit up like a sun and he surged up, spiralling in a whirlwind-streak, all star-studded glory and diamondfire and he –

Crashed into his lover's mouth and felt himself _met_, half-knocked out of the sky by a platinum meteor. The shock was – stunning, shattering, he crowed with wild surprise and fervent joy, vicious, bloodthirsty excitement. Strength to strength he flung himself against this _other_, this one who knew him-matched him, and he felt his _para_'s lips curve into a smirk against his, felt the challenge flash between them like a game of apocalypse. Simon wanted pain, ached to rend and sear and sleeve his arms in blood, wanted fire and wanted to _rule _–

"You want it?" his lover breathed against his mouth, and his lust beat like black waves against Simon's mind, oil and ink, "Then fight for it, my little _fabaznil_, my _aoiveae-orshé – "_

Game on.

Simon's nails slashed over Sebastian's back merciless-deep, hard and sharp as razors. Wetness greeted him, the perfume of copper and rust and he kicked out, twisting, a panther's low snarl tearing out of his throat as he sought to fling the other man from atop him –

And Sebastian slammed him back down against the mattress, pinning his hips expertly, catching and shoving Simon's hands down against the nest of pillows, his _strength!_ Simon's spine bowed without permission, arching upwards with a desperate, hungry gasp; it wasn't a loss, it was perfect, an unholy, blissful thrill of being bested, _mastered_. Pleasure like magma uncoiled through his veins, slow and thick and heady, unbearable, unimpeachable, and it was safety and it was desire, a vicious need for that force, that power, to feel it and be possessed by it. He could throw himself against it for centuries and it would not break, would it? It would hold him, _could_ hold him, and far from inciting fear it only excited him more –

He bucked hard, just to test it, but Sebastian's grip only tightened and Simon hissed, tossing his head back at the sensation, his bones grinding together beneath the skin and the hurt was white, terrible, blinding, perfect white and blood was trickling down his _parastathentes' _shoulders, little threads of crimson winding down his arms. Simon leaned up and licked it, deliberately scraping skin with his teeth, and Sebastian's low, breathless laughter made his stomach clench tight.

His teeth _crunched _down and blood flooded into his mouth, human teeth could cut bone in the right circumstances and Sebastian snarled like the earth tearing. He jerked back and Simon let him go, slipped his hold and snatched a dagger from beneath his pillow, twisting beneath the older Shadowhunter and thrusting the knife at Sebastian's neck – only for his wrist to be smashed away but his other elbow slammed into his _para_'s throat and when Sebastian reared back to breathe Simon snapped his legs back and kicked him, both feet to the other's man's stomach and throwing him back. Simon scrambled upright, his palms slipping on the dark silk sheets as he spun for the edge of the bed, run run _run_ and he was panting with excitement, snatches of breathless laughter susurrating between each gasp of air –

The mattress shifted just slightly and he heard the soft whistle of something cutting fast through air, glimpsed something black and shining like a necklace of night before it looped tight around his throat and _jerked_. Simon's hands flew to his neck with a gasp and he was choking, wrenched backwards against a hard, solid chest and the line of metal a shriek of fire across the line of his neck, biting at his windpipe, and he was so fucking turned on he could hardly see.

"Is that all you've got, _aoiveae-orshé?"_ His _parastathentes_ purred in his ear, and Simon moaned, tipping his head back as his lover's hand twisted, holding the chain around Simon's throat like the reins of a bridle. "Is that the best you can do?"

There were bracelets of bruises around Simon's wrists, fingerprints pressed like dark jewels into his pale skin; the bedside light licked over them and Simon _snarled_, tipping his head back against Sebastian's shoulder, lips wet and open because yes, this was it, they'd done this before.

_He keeps you safe, _his gossamer memory whispered, _keeps you anchored. You wear his marks like gems and every time you touch them you know who you are –_

_His. You have always been his._

There were runes on Simon's palms, on his fingertips, and he knew that if he could only remember what they were for he could get out of this, _you don't need a weapon you _are_ a weapon_, but so much of him wanted to stay right where he was. And yet instinct made him struggle, pulling at the slim chain around his neck and fighting to break free, to get air, to escape and turn the tables because the urge to rip out Sebastian's throat was stronger than the need for oxygen, the need to _scream_ –

Using the chain Sebastian jerked him back, shaking him like an errant puppy. _"Liis chi ozien, _Simon." The words were low and dark like poisoned honey, and the grip on the chain stayed harsh and cruel, and Simon shuddered with sick, sharp-toothed bliss, a whimper catching in his throat as the truth of it melted through his bones. _You are mine. _God, it was beyond words – so fucking hot, twisted up so tight inside; the other man's runes singing against Simon's back and he _couldn't stand it_, held pinned for his lover's pleasure – _"Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien." _

_You will always be mine._

"_Vaoan,"_ Simon whispered, his eyes falling shut.

_Yes._

Without releasing his grip on Simon's neck, Sebastian shoved him down against the mattress, pressing his face into the slick sheets like he was something Sebastian meant to break. The motion pressed their hips together hard, sliding Sebastian's cock through the cheeks of Simon's ass and Simon moaned, his nails raking through the fabric under his fingers. He was gasping for breath and his mind was swimming, simmering, all heat and gold and junkie-craving. Somewhere the sigils on the walls were glowing, but he couldn't remember why he should care –

He was already slick, left-over from the night before, and if he could have breathed past the chain around his throat he would have howled when his lover's cock teased him, sliding back and forth so fucking slowly, torturing, catching just a little on the rim of Simon's hole with each pass. Empty, empty-empty-empty and every cell of his body was swollen and wet and ready, needy, frantic, vicious: he twisted, fighting Sebastian's hold just to feel the burn of being held, the choking lock around his neck and the bone-melting relief of not having to hold back or be afraid of what he might do – it was indescribable, blissful, green gunpowder and white fire, mulled wine and sharp steel; it was safe, _he_ was safe, he could let it all go and be a monster because Sebastian had him mastered –

"_Gohvs zt,"_ Sebastian ordered; _say it_, and Simon snarled, helplessly dripping pre-come onto the sheets as Sebastian ran his thumb down the crease of him, prying him open and teasing the hot wet throb of need. "Say you're mine, and I'll give you everything you need."

Before Simon could draw a breath – to deny it or scream it, there was no telling – Sebastian slid two fingers into him smooth as silk, sudden and thick and _oh, no, _too much and not enough and Simon jerked up out of the blankets with a sobbing gasp, needing the air, pushing back against his lover's hand desperately, the _sounds _coming out of him –

"I'll collar you with your own halo, _fabaznil,"_ Sebastian murmured. "Just say the words, and I'll make sure _this_ never happens."

The chain fell loose around Simon's neck as Sebastian let it go, abruptly tangling his fingers in Simon's hair and wrenching his head back, up out of the sheets, making him _look_ –

The sheets under his hands weren't silk. They were slippery because they were _wet_.

Simon looked past his cage of sigil-wrought lust and saw Jace lying there, still and cold with his throat torn out, his blood staining the sheets and flavouring Simon's teeth, dripping from his lips, and Simon screamed and screamed and screamed.

)0(

Simon _screamed_, a sudden sharp sound that sliced the room in two. Alec jumped and Magnus swore in Hindi; the glow around his hands grew twice as bright but Simon writhed and the light stuttered, flickering like strobelights and Simon didn't _stop_, screamed and screamed as if his heart was being torn from his chest, the flashes of magic casting shadows over his eyes and gaping mouth and rictus face and the _sound_ like broken glass in Alec's ears, sick and familiar – Alec knew that timbre too well, recognised it down in his bones, the horror of having darkness woven in among your veins and the desperation of wanting it _out_, _needing_ it out, oh Raziel please don't let Abbadon have him, don't let –

No, wait, that was before – Abbadon's was gone and it wasn't Alec screaming this time – it was Simon and he was crying out endlessly, fear and tragedy and horror-horror-somebody-make-it-stop, and Magnus' spell pulsing in and out, on and off and light was spilling out from beneath Simon's sleeve, sunlight beaming brighter and brighter, spilling out around his wrist –

Alec heard a grinding _crack_ and whipped his head towards the sound, looked away from Simon and Magnus to see the arterial fault lines slithering through the glass of the window, fracturing the mirror on the dressing table –

"Simon, no!" Magnus shouted, trying to be heard but Simon couldn't hear him, didn't wake, whipped his hands up and raked his nails across his skull, his face, tearing open raw red tracks to mirror the mirror and Alec dove for him, half lying on him as he fought to wrestle Simon's hands away from his face, nails dripping blood and Alec's head ringing like a struck bell from the screaming and Simon twisting and jerking under him like a man possessed, and he was shrieking words that made no sense, _"Yolci t vors ol, yolci t vors ol!"_ over and over and Alec should have been able to pin him easily but instead Simon was almost throwing him off, stronger than he should have been, stronger than he possibly _could_ be –

And the light from Simon's wrist was almost blinding –

Alec shoved Simon's sleeve down and there it was, an _enkeli _Mark emblazoned in liquid gold on his forearm, bisected by scars that could only have come from an _alligatura_ rune but glowing, burning as runes could not burn –

_What are you –_

And every pane of glass exploded.

)0(

"This is your future, _aoiveae-orshé,"_ Sebastian said softly, his lips pressed to Simon's ear and his words were blades as Simon's screams crumpled into desperate, broken sobs. _No, Jace, n-n-no please Jace what have I, I'm sorry so sorry __**Jace**__! _"This is _his _future. You can't keep this from happening, you can't prevent this. Someday soon you'll tear him apart and laugh while he bleeds, because he's not strong enough to leash you and he never will be. And the darkness in you will always reject that which cannot be your equal. Violently."

He turned Simon's face to his and kissed him hard, and all Simon could taste was rust and salt, blood and tears, his heart breaking under the picture Jace's body made hollow and empty on the bed.

Sebastian sighed. "You don't even know what you are," he murmured. He stroked his thumb over Simon's cheek. "Come to me," he ordered, in a voice that was velvet and steel, "or you'll destroy everything you've ever loved."

He smirked. "Just like this," he said, and Simon couldn't look away from Jace's blank-empty-dead eyes but he felt the sigils on the walls – the _wards,_ they were _wards _– come crashing down like the walls of Jericho.

And the thing inside him rushed up out of its broken cage with a roar to shake the world.

)0(

A hailstorm of glass ripped through the room and Alec's arm darted out to snatch Magnus and drag him down onto the bed, dropping and rolling so it that was Alec's back to the window and Magnus pressed up against his chest, safe from the flying shards. Alec caught the saffron-scent of Magnus' magic and something more, something richer and deeper caught in the other man's hair where it brushed Alec's face; salt and flowers, figs and sea-spray, and Alec just wanted to breathe it in and in and in –

The screaming had stopped. Threads of fire lashed Alec's back where shards had sliced through his shirt, but they were easy to ignore, far easier than the warm solidity of Magnus' body fitted against his.

Alec panted, wondering if it was over, if it was safe to move. If the pulse in Magnus' throat had a taste, if it would melt like maple sugar under his lips.

He swallowed hard. "Are you okay?" he asked hoarsely.

He felt Magnus nod. "I'm fine," the warlock said quietly, but he didn't try to move. His chest was rising and falling rapidly beneath Alec's forearm. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Alec whispered. His heart was a bronze bell in his chest, ringing and ringing.

But as his own breath stilled – he didn't dare to breathe, to break this fragile moment landed in his palms like a flake of snow – he heard someone else's; heavy, panicked panting, and he remembered Simon.

He let go of Magnus, forgetting to regret, and pushed himself up. "Simon?" he asked, not sure whether to be wary or concerned. Now that he didn't have the press of Magnus' body to distract him, he noticed that his skin itched – a shivery, restless kind of itching, as if electricity were brushing up and down over his body. Not all over, but gathered here and there on his skin, almost as if –

Simon's hands were held over his face. There was blood on his nails, smeared over his fingertips like paint, and between short, racing pants he was whispering something, a rapid stream of words that slipped past Alec's understanding like vampires fleeing the sun. Alec frowned, instinctively trying to make sense of it; it wasn't English, not Spanish or French or Russian, not Hindi or German or Persian, Romanian, Swahili, or Greek. He was fairly certain it wasn't Mandarin or Japanese, although he knew those less well and couldn't really be sure; it didn't match any of the demonic languages he'd learned with Hodge…

The only word he recognised was _Sebastian._

It was only a second, a moment. He heard Magnus move behind him, shifting on the bed as Alec reached out to touch Simon's shoulder. He called Simon's name again, aware of Jace's tightrope-taut attention at the edges of his self –

And recoiled, cursing, as Simon's hands fell from his face. He scrambled off the bed, wrenching a seraph blade from his belt and invoking it with a whip-crack snap of vowels, _"Ariel," _revulsion and disbelief threatening to overcome him as all the pieces – all the hundreds of pieces – suddenly fell into place.

Because Simon's eyes were black as ichor, and it explained _everything_.

* * *

><p>NOTES<p>

A note on the leech from Yggdrasil line – there are leeches who CLIMB TREES so that they can ATTACK FROM ABOVE. I am not kidding. Look it up.

_Agé _– no (Enochian)

_Agé, obelis agé_ – no, please no (Enochian)

_Agé, gnay ipé, obelis_ – no, don't, please (Enochian)

_Aoiveae-orshé_ – dark star (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

_Gidim_ is an ancient Sumerian word, referring to demons who brought disease. They are the first spirits mentioned to possess humans.

Benzoin, wormwood (absinthe) and sandalwood are all used for summoning spirits.

_Goh an gis vonsarg orst ds goh apamnayz biat_ – I know your every shadow and I stand unflinching (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

_Zir ix ciasin_ – I am not afraid (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

_Niisor, odrax esach. Liis chi ozien. Niisor!_ – Come forth, little brother. You are mine. Come forth! (demonic/corrupted Enochian). A note on this: before people are convinced that Sebastian = Jonathan Morgenstern, please remember that the angel in Simon's vision after the fight with Abbadon also called Simon 'brother'. It doesn't mean the same thing in Enochian that it does in English.

_Liis jahalantz paít cak ozien_ – You will always exist as mine/You will always be mine (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

_Vaoan_ – truth/yes (Enochian)

_Gohvs zt_ – say it (demonic/corrupted Enochian)

_Yolci t vors ol_ – Get it out of me (Enochian)

_Alligatura_ is the name I have given to the binding runes Hodge used on Simon (and which the Inquisitor uses on Jace in _City of Ashes_); i.e., the runes that look like flames and are used as handcuffs on criminals. Basically, I got frustrated that only a few of the canon runes have 'angelic' names (at least ones that we know)(I'm talking about _enkeli_ for angelic power, _iratze_ for one of the healing Marks, etc) so I went through and gave them all names. I will probably post the full list on my tumblr at some point!

Ariel is an angel of protection, whose name means 'lion of God'.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter goes out to dead-world-problems on tumblr, because she dared me to.

* * *

><p>Catarina tapped the neat earpiece in her right ear without taking her gaze away from the diagnostics chart in her hand. "Loss speaking."<p>

She frowned at the unfamiliar voice, lowering her chart as she focussed on the phone call. "Who is this?"

The answer made her stiffen. The message that followed—brief and concise though it was—was worse; words she had never expected—or wanted—to hear in her lifetime flowed into her ear like mercury, cold and toxic and terrible.

The caller hung up without waiting for her response. Catarina barely noticed. She set her chart down on the counter and stared at it sightlessly, trying to comprehend what she'd just been told—and what it would mean for them all.

She glanced at the clock. Luke Garroway should still be upstairs, visiting his mate in room 444; he always stayed until visiting hours ended at 9pm. At least she wouldn't have far to go.

Pausing only to let one of the other nurses know that she was taking a break, the blue-skinned warlock headed up the stairs to call on the fealty of one who had never expected to be called on.

One whom none of them had ever expected to call on.

)0(

"Alec," Magnus said quietly, "put the blade down."

"Why?" Alec's voice emerged cool and brittle, and he didn't look away from Simon's black eyes.

Simon didn't seem inclined to stop looking at him, either.

"Because nothing good can come of using it," Magnus said more sharply, and Alec was already miles ahead of him, already racing to a finish line that made no sense: _he's possessed/no he can't be Nephilim can't be/he was raised a mundane maybe his mother never had the birth-ritual done/if it was a demon it would have gone for my throat by now, it would never lie still and quiet and watchful –_

_He's Jace's heart, I can't hurt him –_

Without warning Simon jack-knifed upright, sitting up so that his face was only inches from Alec's even after Alec reflexively jerked back. He couldn't make out any expression in that eerie gaze—it was as if the boy's pupils had swollen and swallowed up everything, irises and whites both gone in a wash of ink—but Simon slowly tilted his head to one side, as if considering him.

"I know you," Simon murmured. A whispering echo seemed to follow his words, a shivering hum, and the strands of witch-light around the bed trembled and the soft glow slid over Simon's face and Alec saw that Simon's eyes weren't black at all—they were _blue_, deepest blue like the sky at night, and like a midnight sky they were full of stars, specks and motes that glittered like diamonds, countlessly, endlessly—

It was as though gravity had lost hold of him—as if he were falling from the surface of the Earth into space, into the Milky Way—

"Alexander," Simon whispered. "Defender of mankind. _Oel ngati kameie."_ He reached up to touch Alec's face, and Alec couldn't move, couldn't remember why he should want to move as Simon's fingertip lightly traced a circle around each of his eyes. _"Allarin,"_ Simon breathed, and there was wonder in it, a kind of joyous awe that made no sense at all but spilled light all through Alec's chest, spilled until he was overflowing with it—

"Oh, I see," Simon said, staring at him. "Yes." He grinned suddenly, the wicked playfulness at odds with those unearthly eyes. "You're going to need this later," he said, and then his hand curled around Alec's neck and his mouth was suddenly –

Suddenly –

Alec had never wanted to kiss Simon. Not ever. Not once. Simon was maddening and stupid-stubborn and horrifically dangerous to keep around, between his lack of training and the way he tied Jace up in constrictor knots, and Alec had never wanted to know what his lips tasted like. So when Simon's mouth met his Alec tried to jerk back, too aware, sickeningly aware of Magnus right there and Jace between them like a wall of _adamas_—but Simon's fingers were stone and held him still with terrifying ease and it was nothing like kissing Magnus, nothing like—there was no heat to it, no passion, chaste as a sibling's kiss _(the irony nearly choked him)_ without tongue or teeth, and when Simon's lips parted against his it was only –

Only –

_Oh—by the __Angel__—_

He _sang_—Simon sang into his mouth and it made no sense, couldn't be possible, but Alec gasped and inhaled it and tasted lightning, tasted gold, tasted a sowing of stars that plunged down his throat like comets and streaked through his entire body, trailing gleaming white fire, making of him a sky, spinning a new constellation in his head and on his tongue, his lips—his _heart_, newly seeded with novae and aching beneath the astriferous graving, gleaming and gleaming—

Wait. _Wait_—

He saw Magnus' hands close over Simon's wrists, trying to pull him away; could distantly hear the warlock shouting, and then everything went white and Alec was gone.

)0(

_Searing white tore across a black sky, dazzling and blinding, and Alec flung up a hand to cover his eyes. _

_When the light passed, he lowered his arm._

_He was standing on a pier of _adamas_, the seraphic crystal clear as glass beneath his feet. And beneath that, water as dark and impenetrable as the river Lethe roiled and lashed—but this was no river. An ocean of black water stretched on as far as Alec could see, not calm but storming, raging at the sky, the earth, everyone and everything. Wind knifed through his clothing, bitter and sharp and nearly strong enough to knock him off the narrow pier. _

_Behind him there was only a shore of crimson sand, bounded by impossibly tall cliffs that sparked like black opal when the lightning flashed. There was no escape that way._

_But more safety than out here on the pier, surely. Trying to stay calm, he began to turn towards the beach, wondering if he could find a cave or some other shelter from the storm, when between one breath and the next he saw a light out on the water._

_He stopped. It was a humanoid figure woven out of shifting light, standing on the waves as if on solid stone. It had its back to him, but Alec recognised its silhouette. _

"Simon?" _Alec whispered, stunned. Then, louder, to be heard over the storm: _"Simon!"

_It turned its head to look at him, and—no. Not Simon at all. Or—confusion whirled like the winds around them, because the face it turned on him was _almost _Simon's, and yet—and yet not. The lines of its face were sharper, smooth and graceful as a well-made knife, and impossibly genderless, as if Simon's maleness had been stripped away and the result honed with a diamond edge. Its hands rested in the pockets of Simon's jeans, and it wore Simon's jacket, but not his glasses; its skin gleamed poreless in the flashes of the storm, poreless and woven of ever-shifting light—golden and silver, ebony and pearlescent, curling and kissing like oil and water forced to co-exist. Simon's brown hair was gone, replaced with a long mane streaked in night and lightning, living ribbons of glowing light and deep darkness that whipped in the wind._

_The Simon Alec had last glimpsed had had black—galaxy-blue—eyes dusted with stars; this one stared at him with eyes like suns flecked with jet._

_Alec took a step back, reaching for a seraph blade that wasn't there. _"You're not him," _he whispered, and the creature smiled._

_The expression made Alec's heart lurch. The creature was perfect—too perfect. _Inhumanly_ perfect. It was beautiful, but its was the beauty of a lightning bolt: glorious and terrible, incandescent and cataclysmic. Nothing you could touch, or hold, or tame, or love._

_It was a beauty made for fear, not desire. _

_As if it could hear his thoughts, the creature looked away, tipping its head back and directing those blinding eyes up at the sky. _"It's complicated,"_ it said, and the wind still roared but the creature's voice carried effortlessly. _

_It looked back at Alec. _"And this isn't about him. This is about you."

"Me?" _What could this thing—like no demon he'd ever heard of or read about, brilliant and awful as one of the seraphim—want with _Alec?

_It held out a hand. _"Come here."

_Alec stared. _"I can't." _He glanced down, seeing the end of the pier just inches from his feet, then looked out to where the creature stood amidst the waves. _"I can't walk on the water."

_It just waited, its hand still extended. _

_What was this? A dream? There had never been seers in the Lightwood line, but this could only be some kind of vision—or a hallucination._

_Maybe there had been demon blood on Simon's lips. Maybe this was nothing more than a fever-dream caused by the ichor of a Greater Demon._

_But deep down, Alec didn't believe it._

_He stepped off the edge of the pier._

)0(

_Ah, Jocelyn, _Luke thought sadly, gently rubbing Jocelyn's limp hand between both his own, _how in Raziel's name did we end up here? _

The sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital room irritated his nose, and the dry air made his eyes burn, but he ignored both discomforts. It would take far more than that to keep him from Jocelyn's side. Ever since she'd been admitted to the Beth Israel—the only hospital in the state safe for Downworlders, since it was the only one with a warlock on call—Luke had come every day to see her, arriving after he'd closed up the bookstore and staying until visiting hours ended at eight.

Simon didn't.

Since Simon had run away, Luke had only seen him four times; once at the police station, once when he'd arrived to see Jocelyn and Simon had already been in her room, and two glimpses around corners in the hospital corridors. He would think that Simon had stopped visiting his mother, except that every time Luke walked into Jocelyn's room Simon's scent was there waiting for him.

Simon had worked out what time Luke arrived from the store, and now left before that. Nearly every day.

Luke sighed. He had no idea what to do about Simon.

"_You can't even look at me." Disgust. Contempt. And a catch in his breath like a sob. "Fucking __look at me__, Luke!"_

He hadn't looked. How could he? He'd been more of a father to Simon than Valentine could ever dream of being, but after that night…

"_Don't worry. It was Clary's copy that got burnt. Your precious Cup is safe and fucking sound."_

"_For a minute there, I thought you really were going to give it to Valentine."_

"_I was."_

They'd planned the con at the pack house; switching the card that held the Mortal Cup for a fake hurriedly painted by Clary. But Simon had almost abandoned the plan. The thought made Luke sick; for Jace's sake, Simon had nearly handed over a weapon that, in Valentine's hands, might have brought the whole world to its knees.

Only Jace's word had held Simon back at the brink.

That was more than a crush. It was more than confused hormones and adrenalin forging lust like a lightning strike; a quick flash, there and then gone. What bound Simon and Jace was something sick, something radioactive that tore atom from atom and poisoned the earth for a hundred years after. Of course Simon needed help! How could he not have seen that? To have fallen into something so terrifyingly intense in a matter of days—how could he think that was normal? Healthy? It would have been disturbing—and dangerous—even if he and Jace hadn't been related.

But somehow Simon hadn't seen what Luke did. Luke had tried to take him to people who could help—and Simon had leapt from the car, vanishing into the maze of city streets before Luke could catch him up and explain.

He'd been on the phone with his pack, arranging for his wolves to search out Simon—the boy was seventeen years old, Raziel only knew what could happen to him in the city on his own at that time of night—when the mundane police had shown up. Some idiot had seen Simon jump from the car, caught a glimpse of his injuries, and given the cops Luke's plate. As if he would ever lay a hand on Jocelyn's son!

That argument hadn't done much to convince them. Especially once they discovered that Luke had brought an unconscious Jocelyn to the hospital just the night before. Luke could see it in their eyes, smell it on their skin: they thought he'd been the one to do that to her. They thought he was a monster.

'_You are the legal guardian? And how did you obtain guardianship, exactly?'_

And when they'd finally tracked down Simon—Luke had given them Clary's address; where else would Simon go?—Valentine's son had walked into the station as coolly as his father would have. As if nothing could touch him because the world was already his.

'_You can pay Mrs. Fray to house me, or you can go to jail.'_ _His eyes had been flint. 'Do not pass Go, do not collect 200.' He smiled, sharp and bitter as aniseed. 'The cops are __very__ interested in how I collected all these new scars, Luke. Should I tell them?'_

'_I'm not your enemy, Simon.'_

'_Correction: you __weren't__ my enemy. Now?' Flint. Flint and ice. 'Even Valentine didn't try to tell me I needed __fixing__. So congrats. You just topped the genocidal megalomaniac on my hit list. Would you like the complimentary keychain?'_

'_Simon, you're—'_

'_If the next word that comes out of your mouth is some variation of "sick", "confused" or Flash forbid, "troubled", I'm going to go in there and destroy your life.' That smile again. Dark as an oil spill. 'You really don't want to go to mundane jail as a child abuser, Luke. I realise that Shadowhunters have different views on these things, but in this part of the world, even the serial killers will rip you apart.'_

_He tilted his head. 'Unless one of the Nephilim executes you first. Can't risk a werewolf in the mundane prison system, can we? What if they figured out you weren't __normal__?'_

Luke had seen pictures of Adele Fairchild before she married Jocelyn's father, from when she was still Adele Nightshade. Simon looked just like her, like Adele remade into maleness. He had never looked like Valentine; not for one second from the moment he'd been born had he ever resembled his father.

But sitting there in the police station, any quiet, private doubts Luke might have had about Simon's parentage died whimpering. Listening to Simon was like listening to a seventeen year old Valentine; a young man hurt and sick, lit from within by a rage that could consume worlds if it was just given the chance.

What was he supposed to do now? Simon had spun the cops a story and Luke had escaped with his liberty, but the police had been by to see Elaine and Clary's mother now refused to let Luke anywhere near her home, never mind her children. Without Jocelyn, Luke didn't know what to do, what to say. He didn't know how to make anyone understand the danger none of them seemed able to see.

"Mr. Graymark."

It was not a question. Luke looked up, surprised to be interrupted; more surprised because he hadn't heard the interruption coming.

But of course, if a warlock didn't want you to know they were coming, you didn't.

Luke gently lowered Jocelyn's hand, then rose to his feet. "Loss _ashipu."_ He bowed his head. He didn't know what the title meant, only that it was what warlocks were always called among Downworlders, a term of respect intrinsic to the delicate equilibrium of Downworlder courtesy. _Warlock_ was a word only used among the Nephilim. "Have you found a cure?"

"No. I'm afraid I'm not here about Jocelyn."

Luke raised his head. He had heard of those among Lilith's Children whose devil marks—the sign of their Infernal parentage—were more obviously monstrous, men and women with the tails of giant scorpions or mouths full of shark teeth, but to him Catarina's blue skin and milk-white hair were just as eerie and unnatural as a hulder's hollow back. That she chose to wear a necklace of larimar beads—the shade matching her skin tone exactly—at her throat seemed to him a grotesque joke.

Her lapis eyes were unreadable, and he hastily tried to make a mask of his expression, hoping she hadn't caught wind of his thoughts. "Then why—?"

She held up a hand to cut him off. "Lucian Graymark, in exchange for permission to reside in Magnus Bane's territory, you swore an oath of service."

Luke's spine seemed to calcify beneath his skin. "That oath is just an old ritual," he said. "It doesn't mean anything. No warlock has called on it in centuries."

"In Magnus' name, I am doing so." Her expression gave nothing away. "Do you refuse to answer?"

"I…" He glanced down at Jocelyn's sleeping form. "Can I stay in the city if I don't?"

Catarina's expression turned momentarily wry. "If you anger Magnus, you won't be able to stay anywhere on the east coast."

"Then yes, I answer." He had no choice. Not when being banished meant abandoning Jocelyn and Simon both.

It was possibly that the warlock relaxed minutely, but Luke couldn't be sure. "Good. This is what we want you to do."

)0(

_As Alec stepped forward, ribbons of _adamas _darted out before his feet and braided into a seamless extension of the pier; instead of pitching forward into the dark waters, his foot landed safely on solid crystal. The process repeated itself with every step, and Alec's heart was pounding fit to burst in his chest as he drew closer to the creature that was as much shadow as light. It neither blinked nor moved as it waited for him, only its inhuman hair ever-shifting in the vicious wind. _

_He knew in his bones that it would wait for as long as it took him to cross the waves. It would wait forever for him, if it needed to. _

_If he needed it to. _

_Its hand, when he took it, was like warm glass. _

_Its fingers clasped around his wrist, strong and safe. It smiled at him, just a little, and he felt it like a flame leaping in his chest. _

"Now look."_ With its other hand, it pointed to the water in front of them, and Alec looked._

_The waves spiralled. As slowly as dripping honey, a whirlpool formed at their feet, spinning into infinity. They stood on the very lip of it, and as Alec watched a series of images bled across its darkness, growing clearer and stronger as the whirlpool grew more powerful, more dangerous. _

_But it could not be as terrible as what it showed them._

_An army of demons spreading across Idris like a stain, like a virus, black and terrible and terrifying. Fire sweeping across fields of golden grain, driving Nephilim civilians screaming into the arms of the monsters awaiting them. Children too young to be Marked ripped apart like paper dolls, scribing horror on the earth in crimson ink. Towns become pyres, the sulphurous smoke staining the sky. The sweet green of Idris poisoned with ashes and blood._

"What is this?"_ Alec whispered. He wanted to pull away, wanted to dive into the pool, to get away from this and to _stop it_, unmake it, stand against that horde and cut as many of them down as he possibly could—_

"Watch,"_ his guide said, and Alec could not look away._

_He watched, and saw that black tide crash against the walls of his city. He saw the Shadowhunters braced to defend their home drown beneath it, falling by the hundreds, shredded by the claws and teeth of the Infernal army. Their screams echoed over the waves as Alicante's walls shattered under the impact, and the triumphant howls of the demons overwhelmed the wind. _

"What is this?" _This time he shouted, trying to drown out the _sounds_; the shrieking, the dying, the killing. Tears burned in his eyes until he couldn't see at all, couldn't watch his people being slaughtered even if he'd wanted to. _"What is this, why do I need to see this? Stop it!"

_The wind dashed his tears away. They were throwing the corpses in the river. He saw death-glazed eyes and red spreading through the water and couldn't breathe past the pressure on his ribcage. _

"This is the future, allarin."_ The creature turned its sun-shot eyes on him._ "This is what will happen if you aren't there to prevent it."

_It was probably the only thing that could have ripped his gaze from the visions in the whirlpool; Alec whipped his head around, forgetting his awe in place of pure disbelief. _"That's impossible." _All of it, the tide of darkness and death—it could never happen, it _would_ never happen. And not because _Alec_ of all people was going to prevent it. _"You must have made a mistake. Jace is the one you want, not me. I can't stop something like this!"

_Jace was the exceptional one, the dazzling one. He could have stood here and shone golden in the storm; he could stand against an army like that and burn bright enough to drive it back. And he would not stand alone—Alec would be there, Alec would always be there, and Isabelle with them—but Jace was the one who could grab a world in his hand and keep it safe. Jace was the one who would walk straight into legend, and if Alec's name made it into the story, it would only be as Jace's _parabatai_._

_And that was all Alec had ever wanted to be. He didn't want to burn. He'd never wanted to be a legend. He only wanted to keep his brother and sister safe._

_He knew he couldn't do whatever this creature wanted of him._

"If you don't stand, the Nephilim will fall,"_ the not-Simon said. If it was upset with him, Alec couldn't tell; its expression was benignly calm. _"Down to the last child of Raziel."

_Unable to help himself, Alec felt his eyes dragged back to the vision of slaughter and hellfire in the whirlpool. Alicante burned beneath the waters, the _adamas_ towers cracking from the heat. Broken, they fell, a shower of deadly falling stars tumbling to the red earth. _

_There were no words to describe such a sight. It was as if the sun had gone dark; something as permanent as gravity excised from the world._

"Valentine does not understand what he will unleash,"_ Alec's guide said softly. _"He thinks purging the ones you call Downworlders from your world will be simple. It will not be."

_The blood spread across the map, and now it wasn't Shadowhunters but Downworlders that Alec watched, werewolves and vampires and fey at war with Valentine's madness. With a jolt like a knife between the ribs, Alec saw Magnus at the head of a charge, kyanite flames wreathing him like armour, his beautiful face twisted with desperation. _

"Valentine cast his parabatai out when he became a Downworlder. He thinks all the world would have done the same."

_The Downworlders weren't standing alone. The Nephilim were gone, but Alec glimpsed human hands clasping guns and realised that those fighters without claws or fangs or magic were _mundanes_. They wielded weapons that Alec didn't recognise, jet and chrome; some small enough to fit in a fruit bowl and others large as dragons and all of them burning, burning, burning._

"But humanity will fight,"_ not-Simon said. _"They have vampire brothers and werewolf sisters, faerie godmothers and warlock uncles, and they will fight for their families."

_It looked at him with eyes like stars kissed with night. _"And your world will drown in blood."

)0(

Once Lucian was gone, Catarina left, only taking a brief moment to check on Jocelyn's vitals.

Halfway down the stairs, her phone rang again. This time, it was a familiar voice.

"Have you heard?" Ragnor asked bluntly.

"I just sent the local werewolf alpha to investigate," she told him. "We'll know for sure before morning."

"How can we have missed this?" She could imagine her old friend pacing around whatever room he found himself in, the worry and fear twisting his emerald-toned face. Ragnor had always been a worrier, but this time there could be no brushing off his fears as overdramatics. _"Seraphfire,_ Catarina! Only a fully-fledged _anunnaku_ can call on that kind of power! This isn't some toddler who's slipped through our watch, it's matured! And we missed it!"

"I don't believe that," Catarina said firmly. "It can't be imaginal yet. _If_ it's an _anunnaku_ at all—and we don't know that it is yet—it can only be pupa stage at the very most. It would have been found before now otherwise."

"Then how could it have summoned seraphfire?" he demanded.

"We don't know that it _was_ seraphfire!" Catarina snapped. "Now, I told you, someone is investigating. This could very well turn out to have been some new mundane weapon."

Ragnor was quiet. "Do you really believe that?" he asked after a long moment.

Catarina hung up without answering. She stared at her charts for almost four minutes before she was able to ignore the cold weight in the pit of her stomach and get back to her normal duties.

)0(

"But I can stop this?" _Alec asked desperately. How could he possibly stop something like this? Despite seeing it played out before his eyes, he couldn't imagine it, couldn't process the enormity of what he was seeing, what he was being told. The whole world dead and gone. Everything ever made by human hands burned and lost. Jace, Izzy, Max, Magnus, everyone he'd ever known—slaughtered. Every mundane he'd sworn to protect—drowned in the tide Valentine would unleash._

_The creature stared into the water. _"Without you, the Fall is certain,"_ it said. _"With you, there is a chance to turn it aside."

_A chance. Only a chance. He almost asked how large a chance, before he realised that it didn't matter. Any chance at all of averting all that red—he would take it. _

"Without me?"_ he echoed. _"Of course I'll be there! Where else would I be?" _He pointed at the whirlpool. _"I swore before Raziel to defend this world from anything like that. I'll do everything I can, anything I have to do. But I don't know how I could make a difference. It's Jace you need, not me."

"No," _it said._ "Jace is not allarin. The song that must be sung, he cannot sing."

"And I can?" _Alec demanded. As if there was anything he could do that Jace couldn't do a thousand times better! Jace was the epitome of what it meant to be a Shadowhunter; if there was anyone who ought to be chosen for some mysterious world-saving mandate, then it should be Jace. _"Because I'm some kind of linchpin—"

_He froze. _"How do I know that?"_ he whispered. __Allarin__. Not a word from any language he knew, and yet—and yet it meant __hinge__, meant __keystone__, meant __linchpin around which the whole world turns__, and he knew it—_

_And he remembered the song Simon had spilled down his throat with that kiss—_

_The creature stared at him. _"What language do you think you are speaking?" _it asked, possibly amused, and now that he was listening Alec could hear it; the lyrical sound of words that could not be English, could not be any language he had ever learned, and yet that had been flowing from his tongue throughout this vision. _

"You will need Enochian later,"_ not-Simon said lightly, as though it were nothing, as though it did not break all the rules Alec knew to learn a language with a kiss. _"But yes; as allarin, you could hold back the Fall."

"You keep saying could," _Alec said,_ "and might, and if I stand. Why wouldn't I stand? What do I have to do to make this not happen?"

_And the creature said, _"You have to live."

)0(

"You mean I'm going to die," _Alec said. His hand was still clasped in his guide's._ "Don't you? I'm going to die before this happens, before I'm needed." _He nodded to himself. _"That explains it." _What else could prevent him from standing between his family and that dark wave?_

_Only if he was not there would he not stand, and only death could keep him from being there. Only death._

"Yes." _Said so calmly that any sorrow or shock was excised from the revelation._

_Alec nodded again. The thought of dying didn't frighten him. No Shadowhunter expected to live past forty, not unless they retired from active duty, and Alec had made his peace with that before reaching puberty. It hadn't yet been a year since he'd knelt and sworn his life to the war against the Infernal, to lay it down if doing so would save even a single soul from the demons—but even before that he'd promised his death to Jace in the parabatai oath. Where thou diest will I die, and no one who knew Jace imagined that he could live forever. Even with all Alec did to protect him, he might not make it to twenty-five._

_But that his death would damn his family, his world? That was terrifying. It hardly seemed possible that such a cheap thing could be worth so much, but he supposed that as a piece of dirt could break a clock if it got between the right gears, so could his life, placed appropriately, be of some use._

_Maybe that was it. Maybe he needed to take a blow meant for Jace so that his parabatai could stop his father's war. That made sense._

"You wouldn't be telling me this if there wasn't a way to change it," _he pointed out. _"You wouldn't have brought me here otherwise. So what is it? How do I survive until the right time? What do I have to do?"

_When it told him, he wanted to weep. But he was the only one who would have to bear the price, so he didn't hesitate._ "Yes,"_ he said. _"Yes, of course. I'll do it. Take it." _His heart quailed, but his voice didn't waver. _"Take it all."

_It didn't ask him if he was sure. Alec was grateful for that. It gave him the strength to stand firm as the lightning's glow slid over the face of his guide and changed it—or perhaps just revealed it truly for the first time. Thunder roared above the sky, and in the darkness that followed the lightning shadow streaked across the face that was nearly Simon's. Blackness bisected the creature's face, a thick dark stripe slashing down from brow to chin, painting its nose and lips with ink even as the black streaks in its hair bled white. From a mane of snow and salt a pair of curving ebony horns swept forward like a crown, rising above its head like sickle moons, and the mundane clothing melted away like smoke. Armour of obsidian and dragonscale sheathed its arms from palms to shoulders, and trousers of the same material hid its legs, but its chest was bare to the night and the storm. There was nothing to hide the golden runes glowing on its skin, or the way that the Marks drifted across its torso like stars in their orbits, blown by some celestial breath from their moorings._

_And now its eyes were black. Star-studded, but black._

_It tugged at the wrist it still held and Alec went, unflinching, afraid but undaunted. He stumbled onto the water but the waves didn't swallow him, he walked on them as on glass with the creature's hand holding him tight, and when it drew him against its chest he didn't run._

_(Demon, angel, something else, something not meant to walk the world and breathe—)_

"This will hurt," _it said softly, and Alec could hear the pounding of his own heart over the warring winds as it drew him close. The runes on its chest gave off a heat like fire. _"More than anything ever will again. But it will not break you."

_The hand that had held his wrist let go to splay over his heart instead, and Alec grasped the metal-and-scale plating on its shoulders to steady himself. He was blindingly aware that this could well be a mistake, that this entire scene could be a demon-spun lie, but he'd weighed the risks and he stood firm. If there was even the smallest chance that it was true, then he could do nothing else except tip his head back as the creature's other hand slid into his hair, cradling his skull as if he were made of fragile crystal._

_If it was a trap, then he was still the only one who'd suffer for it. The risk—his life for the world's—was a bargain._

_He closed his eyes as it lowered its mouth to his, unable to bear the weight of that jet stare._

_It was like being kissed by a sword. Its lips were cool steel, hard and metallic, and they parted his like a blade._

_When its song began to slip down his throat, he had an instant to realise it had lied when it said this wouldn't break him._

_And then he started to scream._

"I hate dealing with mundane cops," Izzy announced, watching Jace from the corner of her eye for a reaction. "It's always, 'where are your parents?' and 'how old are you?'" She huffed. "As if my age has any relevance to whether I can do my job!"

Usually Jace was the one disparaging and mocking the mundane police, but right now her brother was subdued, his gaze turned inward. It made Isabelle want to shake him, but at the same time she couldn't blame him. After the night he'd had, she would have been testing him for possession if he'd been his usual self.

Oh, well. It wasn't like she was the only one talking to herself on the Subway. She sighed.

Jace glanced at her. "Did you say something?"

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Never mind, Jace."

They were almost at their stop. In a few minutes they would be at Magnus' apartment, and maybe Jace would relax once he saw that Simon was all right. Which Simon would be; after seeing him heal Alec, Isabelle had every confidence in Magnus' abilities. But trying to explain that to Jace after he'd watched Simon drop like that…

Suddenly Jace went still, and Izzy's attention snapped to him. She reached automatically for her whip, because Shadowhunters only froze like that when moving was death, when to twitch was to be in the path of your partner's crossbow bolt or be torn open by dark claws, but a quick glance around the Subway car told her nothing. She saw no threat, sensed no Downworlders or demons anywhere nearby.

"What is it?" she demanded.

As if he couldn't see or hear her, he lifted his hand to his chest, a gesture she'd seen a thousand times when touching his _parabatai_ rune helped him focus on his bond with Alec. Seeing it now chilled her.

"Jace, what—"

He screamed. Not a cry, not a roar: he _screamed_, raw and without pride, as she'd never heard him scream. It was terror and it was agony, more and worse than Alec ravaged by Abbadon's venom, and the mundanes were looking at them with appalled expressions but she didn't know what to do, was locked in place like something of stone because she'd never seen Jace afraid, not really, not like this—

As if fear could kill, if the pain didn't—

He fell, suddenly, fell as if his legs had been cut from under him, and Isabelle reacted instantly, instinctively, darting forward to catch him before he could crack his skull against the floor of the Subway car. Mundanes were standing up, pulling out their phones, but Izzy didn't have the attention to spare for them; she guided Jace to the ground and his spine arched like a bow, every muscle locking in place with his eyes wide open and staring at nothing, at invisible horrors.

The screaming cut off abruptly, but there was no time to be grateful, no time to wonder if maybe it was over; he stopped screaming because he was writhing, the tension in his muscles replaced with sick, terrifying convulsions. He bucked and jerked against the floor, his heels drumming against it, and his eyes rolled back as blood began showing through his shirt, as if a wound had broken open beneath his clothes—

But when Izzy cut sliced his shirt open, stele ready in her other hand and the tiniest flicker of guilty relief sparking in her heart because maybe it was just an injury, nothing to do with Alec at all—when she bared his chest, his _parabatai_ rune was bleeding.

_He fought it, every good intention seared to ashes by a pain that was beyond words, beyond conscious thought, too great and terrible to grasp or make sense of; it tore into him like the tide, implacable and unstoppable and snapping him instantly to an animal state, something raw and primal and mindless, and he fought it like an animal fought a trap. He writhed and twisted and his fists, knees, elbows sought blood, sought freedom and escape—and none of it made a bit of difference._

_His torturer held him like a doll, and all Alec could do was scream._

_There was no trying to bear it. There was no shame or pride or even a memory of why this was happening, why this was supposed to be worth it. The creature sang and the song was magma forced down Alec's throat, lifeblood of the earth and liquid fire and he couldn't swallow it, even if he'd wanted to or remembered why he should he couldn't, every molecule of his being screaming denialrevulsionno, nononever, and it didn't matter because he could choke and choke but he couldn't keep it out; purest pain, like nothing he'd ever felt or ever would again, pain that ignored the nerve endings and neurons and went straight for the jugular, straight for his soul, ravaging something so deep and private he knew no word for it but knew it should not be touched, not ever, not by anyone, and this thing reached in with serrated claws and sliced—_

_Searing, screaming, the sense of something incomparably sacred being desecrated, twisted to perversion and Alec helpless to stop it, unable to bear it, shattering into a million pieces with the sickness lashing him apart—_

_He was nothing, not Alec not a Shadowhunter not human, not a soul and not a mind, nothing but agony, nothing but a screaming cloud of pain—_

_And something tore, something ripped free inside him and the pain turned to paint and he could see, so much, so many colourspicturesshapes flashing strobe-bright through his mind; brilliant, blinding, thunder roaring somewhere far-far above-away; it was like the whirlpool but now they were only glimpses, fragments, rushing through him like a whitewater river—_

Scar-tissue that gleams like mother-of-pearl on the palm of a familiar hand, six perfect points in the shape of a star—

Jace weeping, crying like his heart is broken with a bloodied Simiel clutched to his chest—

The river Sambation, flowing through Alicante like a ribbon of light driving back the gathering dark—

A young man sitting on a bed, his dark eyes blank and empty as he turns his face up for a kiss; and when he falls back with his lover atop him their hair mingles on the pillow, silver with silver, the colour of salt and starlight and bright, shining chains—

Alec's mother on her knees, the barrel of a gun against her forehead and Simon's finger on the trigger, his voice so cold as he says _"My name is not—"_

A club, lights flashing pink-green-blue, Simon's hand empty now and outstretched, beckoning, inviting, his eyes dark and hooded and hot, the curve of his smirk like a choke-collar pulling tight and his voice smoke and sin and siren-song; _"Stay with me,"_ he murmurs, and it's not a request, _"play with me—"_

Jace's eyes wide with horror and disbelief and the blade is in Alec's hand as the whole world is washed away in red—

Darkness thick with the smell of sulphur and ash and burning flesh, and a hissing voice almost laughing with terrible anticipation, _"The Sword of Sammael has come again—"_

Isabelle standing beside Clary, both of them braced against a tide of dark shadows—

Max's terrified face as the Mortal Sword comes plunging down towards him, aimed for his heart—

_NO!_

_One thought, one second—one directive more urgent than any agony could ever be and it sliced through the pain like a blade, grenade, a lightning strike come blazing down and it struck and he was fulgurite, crystallising-coalescing and exploding apart in the same coin-toss torrent, every atom of him turned into a newborn nebula with the sun in his mouth and galaxies spinning from his fingertips like puppet-strings, a hundred-thousand threads in a million different directions and he bound them all, he was the knot, the linchpin, **allarin**—_

_You can't have my family, that future will not be; you can't have my family, THAT FUTURE WILL NOT BE—_

_And the thing that had been torn from him vanished beyond his reach, forever and always, and Alec was gone._

"Jace! _Jace!"_

He couldn't hear her; or if he could, he couldn't respond. He shook like something about to shatter, as if an earthquake was tearing its way through his bones, ripping him in half. Izzy dropped her knife and the blood on his chest smudged under her palm as she sketched frantic Marks on his skin—Marks which slid away like wet ink, dripping and smearing into nothing. They didn't even leave the white scars that runes always left, no keloid kiss to prove that Izzy had even tried to help.

She scrabbled for her phone, dropping her stele in the process as she struggled to hold Jace's head in her lap. There were mundanes gathered around, talking and exclaiming and she couldn't hear a word of it, not with her bloody fingers slipping on the keys of her phone they were shaking so hard—what if it was Alec too, what if she was going to lose both of them and she could do _nothing_—

And then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

Jace went limp, collapsing bonelessly into Izzy's hold. His eyes fell shut as if weighted, and he was breathing hard—gasping for breath, as if lungs had been starved or smothered, and Isabelle lost her grip on her phone in her hurry to check Jace's pulse.

It was quicker than it should be, but slowing, the jagged spikes and plunges smoothing out even as she waited. His breath was already coming more easily.

And his _parabatai _rune had stopped bleeding. More importantly, it was still dark as ink, not faded as it would be had the bond been broken somehow.

If she'd had anything left to drop, she would have dropped it, so overwhelming was the surge of relief. It was almost enough to make her cry: Jace was alive, and so was Alec, and as long as those two things were true… Anything else in the world could be fixed so long as those two things were true.

The train was slowing. Quickly, Izzy gathered up her things, holstering her stele and blade and pushing her phone into a pocket.

"Give me some room!" she snapped at the gathered knot of people, and they jerked back, startled by her vehemence. She ignored their shock and disapproval as she ignored the well-meaning few who actually seemed concerned; they chittered like sparrows as she braced herself against the rocking of the carriage and picked Jace up, one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees.

He stirred a little, and she thought he said something, but his voice was too low and the noise of the train too loud for her to make it out.

Another ripple of surprise went through the mundanes as she got to her feet, easily balancing the extra weight. A glance around showed her wide eyes in all directions, but she couldn't figure out what she'd done wrong to catch their attention like that—she hadn't used any Marks, hadn't drawn a glamour and vanished Jace and herself into thin air—and this was their stop.

She leaned against a pole to keep from jolting Jace as the train screeched to a halt, and when she moved towards the door the mundanes scattered out of her way, as if the sparrows had just realised a hawk was near.

The atoms of him, scattered halfway across the universe, came rushing back together and Alec slammed back into himself with a cry that was nearly a scream. As if from aeons away he saw Simon fall back onto the bed, limply unconscious, eyelids falling shut over star-dusted black, but it meant nothing to him—nothing, because something was gone, missing, ripped away and he was bleeding, he was screaming with the loss—

The loss was all he was, it was everything; he was hollow, a gaping hole clothed in skin and the sheer _emptiness_—

There was a black hole where a sun should be, inside him—

_"Alec!" _Jade-gold slashed through with black; hands on his shoulders; his name, called over and over until it pierced the mind-numbing terror, made him remember the world outside his loss. "Alec, what is it? What did he do? What's wrong?"

He wasn't bleeding. Not really, not _physically_, but there was a cauterised wound at his core and it was seeping plasma, weeping, the edges shrieking-raw and he couldn't get his breath for the sobs catching in his throat.

Worlds away, Magnus whispered something under his breath, and instantly half a dozen black ribbons sprang from beneath the bed and snapped around Simon's wrists and ankles. The black satin gleamed blue under the witchlight, like the wings of a raven. "I was hoping to introduce you to those under better circumstances," Magnus said, and he might have been speaking underwater for all the sense he made. "But anything that garners this reaction from you I want bound." Fingers touched Alec's face. "Alec, _what happened?"_

Alec shook his head. "I don't know," he gasped, and salt stung his eyes but it wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough of a distraction from the pain inside. "I don't know. I can't—I don't—remember—"

And then he was crying in full flood, mourning something he couldn't name and had no memory of losing—but which he knew, as he knew his own name, had been priceless, and vital, and irreplaceable.

And he knew, even as Magnus' arms wrapped around him and pulled him close, that there would be no getting it back.

* * *

><p>NOTES<p>

_Oel ngati kameie_—this is actually not Enochian; it's 'I see you' in Na'vi, the alien language from James Cameron's _Avatar_. Because even Simon's other-self is an _enormous geek!_

The river Lethe is one of the five rivers of the Greek Hades, the realm of the dead. In Classical Greek, the word 'lethe' literally means 'concealment' or 'oblivion'—but it's also tied to the word for 'truth'.

_Ashipu_—the word for sorcerer or healer in ancient Sumer.

In canon, a warlock's sign of demonic parentage is called a 'warlock mark'. In Runed, it's called a 'devil mark' (at least among the Nephilim) and has ties to the Salem witch hunts and the Christian beliefs of the early Nephilim. Basically it's a slur, a nasty thing to call it.

A hulder is a Scandinavian tree spirit/faerie with a hollow back.

Larimar is a beautiful blue gemstone. Metaphysically it encourages peace and tranquillity, bridges the gap between emotions and the intellect, and 'opens both the individual and the Earth for evolution'. It hones precision of purpose and is believed to bring about angelic contact.

_Allarin_—literally 'binding', but the meaning is a fair bit more complicated than that. It might be better to say 'linchpin' or 'hinge'. (Enochian).

'Imaginal' is the final stage in insect metamorphosis, the four stages being; egg, larva, pupa, and imago or imaginal. Catarina and Ragnor are using the term to describe an _anunnaku_ fully come into its powers.

The Sambation is supposedly the river beyond which the Ten Tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrian king.

Fulgurite is a kind of crystal/mineral formed when lightning hits just the right kind of sand or soil.


	5. Chapter 5

After some thought, I realised that most of what I had for chapter five actually belonged at the end of chapter four. That in mind, I've updated chapter four; you can go straight to the end of chapter four to read the new content. I hope you enjoy it!

A PROPER chapter five will hopefully be up soon!

Also, for those of you who missed it, Epilogue the Second of _City of Shadows_ has been rewritten. Since it has quite a bit of bearing on the overall plot of the Runed series, you should check it out if you haven't already! It is now listed as 'Epilogue the Second: Canon' in the CoS' chapter listings. The old Epilogue the Second is still available as 'Old Version'.

This author note thing will be deleted by Monday the 15th December.


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